The Years Pass On
by Aymelek Phoenix
Summary: Three years after Naraku's defeat, a young man who looks remarkably like the human form of the dead Inuyasha appears at the Higurashi shrine, and bears his name. He's no reincarnation, and has been around since the Sengoku Jidai.
1. Prologue

Prologue.

It was the aftermath. But it was completely different than they had ever imagined beating their enemy would be. Or perhaps it was that they had just never dared actually think about what life after revenge would be like. Their thoughts had always been focused on the battle itself, never moving beyond that great moment when Naraku would fall at their feet, vanquished. It had been a good way to live, but had done little to prepare them for what would happen after, or rather, now. They were all gathered here, all of them, now eyeing each other warily, for under normal circumstances they were not the best of friends. In some cases, they were the best of enemies, united only by the unspoken truce created by the crimes of their mutual enemy. Inuyasha, the 'hero' of the epic that had begun when the Shikon no Tama, the orb of the four souls, had been shattered, stood up straight and shouldered his Tetsusaiga – the fang-sword that was longer than he was when transformed. Normally he would have sheathed it in a dramatic action signaling what he had accomplished. But considering the company that he was currently keeping, they were not out of the woods yet. His pointed ears pivoted cautiously. He was a half-blooded demon of the canine variety, as the meaning of the characters he used to write his name clearly stated. His pointed ears were covered with soft white fur, fur nearly the same color as the silver hair that flowed past his waist. His nails were closer to claws, and his eyes were golden. Although he looked otherwise human, he was never to be mistaken for one.

Kagome was standing next to him, clad as always in the strange garb she called a 'school uniform' from her time. Although upon their meeting he had tried to kill her for the sacred jewel, now he was used to having her at his side. What would happen to her now? It upset him as it was when she left to do her 'tests'; how could he possibly cope if she disappeared through the well forever? He glanced over at Miroku, who was predictably staring at his right hand. The sacred beads hung useless in his other hand. They would never be needed again, for the vortex Naraku had put in the hand of his grandfather was no more. But perhaps to counter Miroku's good fortune, Sango's brother Kohaku lay dying, the shard that had so long preserved his life ripped from him by Naraku, the same being that had brought him to death's door in the first place. which no longer had a black hole in the middle that sucked everything in.

Inuyasha jumped, detecting motion in the vicinity of his elder brother. He and Sesshoumaru had never gotten along, and he was not entirely convinced that his brother was no longer after the sword of their father that Inuyasha carried. But it was the little human girl that so mysteriously trailed after his brother wherever he went. She broke away from where she had stood behind Sesshoumaru, and ran to kneel by Kohaku as well.

"Sesshoumaru-sama?" She asked softly, her young eyes uncomprehending the meaning of Kohaku's labored breath and Sango's tears. Inuyasha's eyes flicked to his brother. It was Sesshoumaru that had kept him from putting his sword away – whenever he and his full demon half-brother met, they fought, and at the moment, he really didn't feel up to it. Hopefully Sesshoumaru did not either. All in attendance had fought hard to defeat Naraku, so his brother should be just as tired as he, right?

In response to the little girl's silent question, Sesshoumaru walked forward, his hand on the hilt of one of his two swords. Inuyasha's jaw dropped, Kohaku had once almost killed the little girl, but he'd been under control then. Certainly Sesshoumaru had figured that out and wasn't going to…

"No!" Sango cried, and covered her brother's body with her own. Miroku stopped staring at his hand, and he and Inuyasha rushed forward, Kagome not far behind…though not fast enough.

In one deft movement, Sesshoumaru drew his sword and slashed both Sango and her brother. The three rushing forward stopped in shock, but there were no cries of pain and no spurting of blood from newly opened wounds. Sango slowly sat up, only to be pulled protectively into the arms of her fiancé, who did not immediately realize that she was unhurt, and that even the wounds she had received in battle were gone. Inuyasha stared in shock.

"Tensaiga." Kagome said, understanding first. "I completely forgot."

"H-he…healed Kohaku?" Miroku stuttered. And it was true. The boy, previously on death's door or worse, opened his eyes, and Sango broke away from Miroku to lean over him.

"Sango?" He said, looking up at Sango in confusion. He sat up. "Where are we?" Clearly, his memories had returned with his life.

That little crisis over, Inuyasha looked over at his rival – Kouga. But for once the wimpy wolf was not fawning all over Kagome, so Inuyasha did not really feel an inexorable need to attack him outright. Must be his exhaustion again. His eyes caught Kikyou's. She was watching him, she, the resurrected form composed of mud and human bones in the likeness of his lost love, more than fifty years gone. He still remembered with searing clarity that fateful day when the red string of fate had been cut, when she had taken the sacred jewel to meet him, to make him human like her. Both of them had died that day, both believing the other to be their murderer. Inuyasha had done nothing, but Kikyou had sealed him to the god tree. Naraku had tricked them into killing each other, and it had worked.

Fifty years later, Kagome had popped out of the well from the strange world of the future she called Tokyo, with the jewel they had died for, that Kikyou had ordered burned with her remains hidden in her abdomen. She had not even been aware of it. Fifteen years old, she had been attacked by a centipede demon and the Jewel of the four souls had been freed and brought back into the world. To save her life she had freed the boy stuck to the god tree, and Inuyasha had been revived to the scent of the girl who had sealed him. Days later, Kagome accidentally shattered the sacred jewel, marking the beginning of their strange relationship. At first her presence had annoyed him, but now he could not think of a future without her. She was the first person to accept him as he was. Even Kikyou had wanted him to become human to live with her. She had put up with a lot from him over their travels, and yet she still stayed with him. What was he to do when she returned to 'Tokyo' for 'tests' and didn't come back? What if the well closed up while she was on the other side? What if…

But in reality, he could see no real way for them to be together. She had a whole other life on the other side of the well, in a world that he could never hope to really understand. He had visited there before, and managed to survive it, but to live there? And all had not been resolved wit the death of Naraku. Kikyou remained. She still walked the earth because of the blind rage she had felt upon her resurrection for Inuyasha, and that rage kept her here still, though she knew the truth now. She could not rest until she took him with her. It was an impossible situation. He could not be with Kagome, and he could not just leave Kikyou to forever wander the earth. He did not want to die, he did not want to go to hell, but he could not let things lie.

Inuyasha's thoughts were interrupted. "What to do? The jewel?" She glanced around.

Sesshoumaru turned indifferently away. "I have no interest in such a thing. I have all the power I possibly need."

"I don't need it either." This from Kouga. Inuyasha scoffed at this, for the demon had carried shards in his legs to quicken his speed since they met him. "Unlike the mutt, I don't need outside help."

"Yeah right." Inuyasha scoffed. "-cept you needed it up 'till five minutes ago." But his voice lacked bite. Today, nothing could anger him. Normally the insult would have enraged him, but now it only seemed petty.

"Nor do I." Kikyou said. "The Shikon no Tama has brought me nothing but sorrow."

Kagome picked up the small pink bead and held it between her delicate fingers. "To think that such a small thing could cause such trouble." She tossed it to Inuyasha. "Well, it appears that now you're the only one who wants the wretched thing."

Inuyasha looked down at the sacred jewel in his palm. Once, he would have given anything to possess it, but now? Now he saw it only as the instrument of all his sorrows, perhaps even an extension of Naraku. He no longer wished to become a full-demon, to leave his mother's blood behind, to become as powerful as his brother. Now, he had nothing to wish for. Or did he?

He closed his hands over the jewel and closed his eyes. When he opened them, everything was as it had been. Of course, his desire was beyond even the power of the jewel. He glanced around the group until his eyes rested on Kagome. It was at that moment that the solution to his dilemma, the only solution, occurred to him. He looked at Kagome, and she stepped back, surprised by the look in his eyes of absolute decision, for better or worse.

He approached her slowly, dropping the jewel in her hand. "Kagome, you are the guardian of the Shikon no Tama, you take it." He closed her hand around it, willing his voice to be steady as he continued, "Don' be mad, Kagome, it's the only way. I'll find you again, if I can." Then, as he had so long ago on the day he had tried to prevent her from ever returning to the era of the warring states, Inuyasha swept her into his arms and held her tightly, resting his chin on top of her hair. It was the round-about way, but it was the only one.

He released her abruptly, and stalked over to Kikyou, who had watched all this almost impassively. "Let's go." He ignored the gasps around him at this statement.

"Inuyasha?" Kikyou frowned. It was surprising how much emotion her golem body could communicate.

"I die, you die, right?" He said. It was not a question. "You can't stay here. You aren't real, and you'll probably try to kill Kagome an' me again, and I can't let that happen. So I'ma go wichu."

Kikyou did not wait for him to ask twice. As the light rose from the ground around he and Kikyou, and the ground began to give way, Inuyasha sent one thought upward before oblivion. "Don't cry, Kagome."


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

Here I was again. Although I have traveled the world many, many times over, I always find myself back here somehow, watching over the development of the largest city in the world, Tokyo, Japan. It is my home, I suppose, the only one I ever had, but it had not been called Tokyo then, or even Edo. But it was the same place, and housed the god tree, and the bone-eater's well within its metaphorical walls, which grew every day. Both the tree and the well have a strong sense of meaning for me, though I do not know exactly why. Even after all this time, there is so much that I do not know, that I do not understand. The Tree and the Well, as well as parts of an ancient shrine are the only things left from the original Tokyo, a tiny village that existed during the time when the great warlords of Japan fought each other for land and power, before the shoguns had cracked down, taking power from the emperor and Kyoto and moving it here, making Tokyo the center of power, and aiding its growth into the biggest city in the world.

There isn't a soul in Tokyo who remembers or knows much of anything about Tokyo before it was called Edo by Tokugawa. But I am not like other people. I recall those days in vivid, living color, because I was there. I was there, before I fled before the shoguns and left Japan in time to escape the long years of its isolations from the rest of the world.

But even though I lived through that era, and so many after it, I still do not know why. Why have I remained twenty or so for the last five hundred years? I learned early to avoid creating close relationships with others, because I do not age. I still move around a lot, and not only because it helps prevent people from realizing my longevity. It is second nature to me, as if I had been a wanderer long before I became stuck in time and lost my memories.

I fled Tokugawa to Korea. From there, I reached the rest of the world, and came into my fortune. In the beginning I was something between a trader and a mercenary. I fought with a fierceness that was rare, even in those barbaric times, and I had a tolerance for pain and injury that far outdoes others. But I'm not immortal. I don't age, but I have come very close to dying many times. It was centuries before I began to feel homesickness for the place of my birth, and finally returned, though not for long. By that time, I'd already amassed the beginnings of the wealth I now have, but it was the modern era that catapulted me into the realms of obscene wealth. There is a good-sized fortune stowed away for me in the banks of several countries should I feel the need to collect it, each under a different name. One might think finessing the ways of the business world with a new identity ever few decades, and disguising the fact that I do not age might be hard, but I have had a lot of practice. I do not let people take pictures of me, and I never stay in one city for long. I move the money around every few decades, and pretend to be some sort of recluse millionaire. You wouldn't believe how common they are.

A few years ago – or was it decades, I found out that the well and the god tree were in danger. It gave me a jolt unlike anything I've ever felt, then or since. They are my only clue to my identity, and I could not lose them. So I pulled some strings, and got the old shrine protected as an ancient religious relic – and under my jurisdiction. The Goshinboku, the Well, and the rest of the old shrine are in the hands of the Higurashi family. The name seemed familiar somehow, but to tell the truth, old Higurashi only got the shrine because he didn't irritate me by treating me like a child. Most businessmen do, by the way. After all, I look like some kid who just got out of high school. Of course, I'm not, but people do it nonetheless. Old Higurashi recognized that I wasn't some greenhorn and showed me some respect. He's still around, but I've heard that he's grown somewhat senile in his old age.

I've never been able to find even the slightest clue as to why the hell I'm still alive. That old delinquent Miroku knew, and so did his wife Sango. But they refused to tell me my past. Those two did not even bother to try to hide that they knew everything, which only angered me further. But when I threatened them, they tended to look at me with an expression that made me wonder if I had threatened with a bloodletting countless times before, before I lost my memory. If I persisted, and I often did, Sango would threaten to bonk me with the Hiragotsu, and being hit with a boomerang bigger than an average man and just as heavy isn't something you submit to lightly, even though she usually did not hit me as hard as she _could _have.

The both of them were sad somehow, sad for themselves, but even more sad for me. Someone was missing from our lives. I used to catch them sitting out by the old well, sitting on the edge and looking inside, as if waiting for something. Somehow, I got the idea they were waiting for that missing person, odd as the notion was. Whoever they were waiting for never returned.

But even more than Miroku and Sango, that little Kitsune Shippou missed that mysterious person. Shippou was the only one who ever let anything slip, because he was still a child when I first knew him. The one they missed was a woman, who had acted as a sort of mother for the orphaned kit. He's still around, of course, since he's a full demons. Last I heard he was some big business lord in Osaka. Lots of demons are, you know, and are involved much less often with the underworld than one might think. Most haven't survived this long, but most of the ones that have did so by blending into the human world. Like me, they eventually made some money for themselves through the endless practice they got over the centuries. Becoming a billionaire might be difficult for an ordinary mortal, but it is not too hard when you have a few centuries and many identities in which to do so. I had plenty of time to become a master of the market and corporate games, and I have managed to reap the reward that come to the proficient. I haven't seen Shippou in a while. I should look him up, while I'm in Japan.

My past is confused, but the future is even more so, because there is a feeling lying beneath all the rest. I am waiting for something, though I do not know what. I have been waiting for it for over 500 years. But the only thing I'm sure about regarding my past, or really anything, is my name. It is strange; I've seen it in history books, though by now, that story has been lost in the midst of time, and only the name remains. The story is a strange old myth about a half-blooded demon and a magic jewel, about romance with priestesses and alien women in strange garb, and about terrible fights with demons, and with an enemy that was not quite demon, and yet not human. It is among the first stories I remember, perhaps because I share his name, Inuyasha.

I had looked in on the old shrine some years ago. I was surprised at how much time had passed since I had last been there, but of course, it is not the same for me. The family had grown during my absence; Higurashi had two grandchildren now. I had missed an entire generation. The little girl caught my eye. She could not have been more than four or five. I got a jolt from seeing her, one that I explained away as surprise at how much time had passed, but I knew that was not really why. I used to visit quite often in the few years after I had given the shrine to Higurashi, but stopped because I did not want the old man to notice that I do not change. I had a special interest in the Higurashi family even after my official visits had ended. They were protecting my past. I stayed away from their eyes, though I swear that little girl knew I was there. I was waiting for it to turn dark, so I could poke around without fear of old Higurashi recognizing me from fifty or so years before. After all, I obviously have not changed. She looked straight at the branches of the Goshinboku where I was sitting, then flounced away, as if whatever she suspected no longer concerned her.

There is something about the Higurashi shrine that calls to me, something I felt for the first time that day. It was more than the link to my past, more than the well where I used to sit with Miroku and Sango so long ago. The shrine was nothing like it had been in those days; even the well had its own house. Yet the day I saw the little girl, I felt as if I had been there before, although I had never seen the modern shrine in its completion before that day. In the night, as I walked about the grounds unobserved, I got a strong urge to go up to one of the windows, open it, and go inside. It was as if I felt somewhere beyond consciousness that someone was waiting there for me, not surprised in the least that a man (not to mention a perfect stranger) would come in their home via the window. I felt that I would be welcomed. So I left before I did anything rash. There is something about that little girl, though I suppose she is not so little anymore.

I shook my head in order to bring myself back to reality so I could disembark from the plane. As soon as I stepped off the plane and into the airport, I realized that something about Tokyo was inherently different. There was something, something spiritual rather than material, that had not been there twelve years before. It was the same feeling I had gotten when the little girl had seemed to spot me in the branches of the god tree a few years ago, but it was stronger now. I decided that it was time I openly paid a visit to the Higurashi shrine, at the risk of being recognized.

But first things first. I did not know how long I would stay in Tokyo, so I had made reservations to stay in Tokyo for a few weeks. It had been a while since I had been to Japan, so I figured that I could find something to do. It was cherry-blossom season, and it had been many, many years since I last drank beneath the cherry trees. I was vaguely considering getting a flat in the area. It wouldn't hurt to have some permanent lodgings here again. I walked lazily over to the window and looked over the city in the distance, ignoring the distracting planes landing and taking off in the foreground. Though I had often gone decades, or even centuries without seeing Japan, Tokyo had been emitting a pull in recent years unlike any before. Even I could not ignore it. Visiting Japan was easier now, only a few hours, comparatively, by plane, and I had taken advantage of the ease of travel during the past few decades.

I took the train into the city, and a cab to my hotel, or at least that was my intention when I got in. But halfway there I was seized by a sudden desire to see the old sword again. It was one of the few relics from my past, that and a strange affinity for the color red. It was somewhat pathetic, actually, and old, beaten up katana that was so blunt it could have been a child's toy, but I had never been able to let go of it. Miroku told me once that I was called Tetsusaiga, and had been a gift from my father. I could never find whatever magical power it was supposed to possess, and had been forced to get another in order to survive feudal Japan. Difficult as life was back then, I could not help but feel lucky to have the friends I did, even though they would not tell me the secrets of my past. They believed it was for my own good, and I have long since forgiven them.

Japan has strict rules about weaponry, so I had put the sword in one of those security boxes at the bank. I have a permit for it, but I pass through customs too often to risk some overzealous official questioning the permit, which is really old, and taking the sword away. My old coat of fire rat fur was in there as well, the first clothes I ever owned. They have been through a lot, but still do not show much wear and tear. The nature of the material prevents it, it is better than any armor. How many times had they saved my life back in feudal times? Luckily, in this day and age, almost all Demons were dead, and the rest had taken human forms and blended into society. They were the most powerful demons of all, the ones that I always had to watch out for. Some things never change.

I stopped off to get the sword, and emptied the box of all of my ancient belongings, ignoring the clerks exclamations at the amazing relics I own. I did not question my motives because I knew I had no answers. I made it to the hotel without any other notable distractions. I was tired and worn out from the overnight flight, but since I had a sword in hand for the first time in many years, I resolved to practice a bit - just to see if I could still remember it, you understand. Back then, I tended to just swing my sword around until I hit something vital, but as time progressed I started to figure out that some instruction might be nice.

These days, I have hundreds of swords, from all different areas of the world, though I'd left them back in a country where they are not so strict about weaponry as the land of my birth. My cover story is that I'm a collector. No one has any idea that I know how to use all the medieval weapons I own rather well, from experience. I'm not very big, or particularly dangerous looking.

The sword exercises predictably put me to sleep, and it was several hours before I awoke.

I awoke to find myself sitting with my back against the wall, cross-legged and hugging my battered sword. It was the old fighter's position, one that I had abandoned centuries back. I rolled to my feet, glancing around the opulent room with irritation. Why spend so much money on a place like this if I was just going to sleep against the wall? I went to the window and looked out over the city. Tokyo is bright even at night these days. All at once, I was seized by the insane urge to go out the window. I am used to ridiculous notions like that. It's similar to the one that makes me climb trees, but I usually do not succumb as much to this one, if only because most of my properties are penthouses hundreds of feet above the ground. When your room is on the tenth floor, you definitely want to take the elevator.

So I did, even remembering to leave Tetsusaiga behind, though I almost ran out the door with my naked sword in my hand. Tetsusaiga's blunt, so it is not much of a threat, but Japanese authorities do not ask questions. You either follow rules, or you do not, and walking around downtown Tokyo with a naked sword is definitely not following the rules. I changed my clothes and left the room. Checking my watch, I was glad to find that it was quite late: two o'clock in the morning. I did not feel like dealing with the crowds of the city, but even here they would be absent at this time of night.

Once I reached the lobby, I made a beeline for the door. I was staying in a really posh hotel, and when I got out of the doors, a security guard snapped to attention, looking surprised, and asked if I needed a taxi. I shook my head and strolled off down the street, aware that he was probably staring after me incredulously. Not that I cared.

I was only a few blocks from the shrine, which was good, since the trains definitely were not running. I knew I would probably end up there eventually. Tokyo is probably the only city in the world where roaming the streets in the middle of the night was not all that dangerous of an undertaking. Japan is one of the safest places in the world. Even in the highly unlikely event that I was attacked, it was not as if I was helpless. Like I mentioned, five centuries more life than normal humans gives you a lot of time for leisure. I have been instructed in most major fighting arts, many that use no other weapon than the hands. It is a useful skill for a place where other types of weapons are strictly forbidden. I am a positive encyclopedia of destructive knowledge.

I stopped suddenly, a strange feeling overcoming me, and ducked into an ally, breathing hard. So much for the safety of Japan. I had not felt that much evil energy since – it was a very long time ago. I am well aware that the world's most powerful demons are hidden in the guise of regular humans, but this could not be one of them. Their disguises also covered their energy. I am more sensitive to supernatural energy than other humans, for reasons probably related to the fact that I don't age, but even normal humans can feel strong energy, so the demons in hiding hide their power as well as their natural appearance.

I couldn't imagine what could be going on here. There was one possibility, although my heart skipped a beat at the thought. There were _those_ demons, the ones that refused to conform. It was a pitiful existence, mostly in the fighting pits of the world's most disturbed crime lords, nothing more than glorified animals. That brought up another fleeting thought, of the rumor I had heard shortly before boarding the plane, that some of those powerful demons that had the sense to hide as humans had been captured. It was hypothesized that the culprit was the same crime lords that run the fights, who perhaps realized the additional interest a demon with real power might might elict in their high-flying customers. Or perhaps, they had caused trouble for the wrong people, which I knew was not only a rumor. I had seen some of them, certainly dead, encased and frozen in tanks underneath the pits. Even those who lived in the pits were incredibly powerful to have survived so long, so if one had escaped, it could conceivably possess this much power. But there were so many precautions to prevent that very thing from happening. What did that leave?

I slowly rose to my feet, once the weight of the power had passed on. Was it going on towards the shrine or was I paranoid? That was ridiculous. There was nothing special about my shrine anymore, and there had not been since before even I could remember. The sacred jewel had disappeared, and there had been no sign of it for five hundred years. It was said that my namesake, Lord Inuyasha, destroyed it by making a wish that purified the jewel, thus destroying it, though no one ever came up with a good idea of why no one has a clue of what happened to him afterwards.

Walking cautiously out of the alley, I continued on my way, my anxiety about my shrine quickening my steps. Even though I knew it was safe, I was still ceased by the urge to get there as quickly as possible. Why was it that I always seemed to find myself in the middle of danger?

The young man stepped out of the alley he had ducked into and the dark figure began to follow at a distance once again. He seemed agitated now. His pace had quickened from languid to quick and purposeful. So he could still feel evil energy even in his grossly altered form. Perhaps the alteration had not been so much of a stretch after all. The pursuer had his doubts about the human body, but apparently it was not completely useless.

He, on the other hand, had not changed much, even when he'd started to pass himself off as a loathsome human. He had kept more of his features than most demons, refusing to restrict his coloring to the pitiful palette of humans of Japan. Besides, so many of them dyed the hair and altered their bodies that even he blended in. Despite the fact that he spent almost all his time now in the company of humans, there were still a precious few that he could stand, the most dear of which had died centuries before, and he powerless to stop it even with all of his gifts. As he walked along behind his target, he basked in the sharpened senses he was allowing himself under the cover of night. Usually he created the illusion of a normal Japanese male, if tall, obscuring even his hair and eyes in some situations. But at the moment, he was in the form he had been born into: silver hair past his waist, yellow eyes, and poisonous claws. No mere human, but a full-blooded demon of the first class, Sesshoumaru – Lord of the Western Lands.


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I continued to make my way in the general direction of the shrine, but I was now a great deal more distracted. The implications of so great an evil power in Tokyo made me very nervous. Tokyo was the closest thing I had to a real home (though my true home had disappeared long ago) and there was something here, something I could not quite put my finger on, that I was willing to protect with my life. Maybe it was the shrine. I had always thought so, but now I was not so sure of it. Certainly, the shrine was my past, but now that I stopped to think about it, my past had never really been all that important to me. Of course, I'd had friends and as much of a childhood as was possible when one can't remember anything before the age of nineteen, but that was all gone now, and protecting the place it happened was not going to bring them back. I had managed to accept that a long time ago, as I had accepted the fact that I do not age. Perhaps I was only forming awry conclusions from lack of sleep produced by a combination of business stress, jet lag, and the general insomnia I have always suffered from, but it seemed that there might be another reason I'd saved the shrine from annihilation.

A completely off-center conclusion flitted across my mind and I smiled a bit at the absurdity. Perhaps I had only been doing my job as the god of the shrine. The shrine's guardian spirit was Inuyasha, the half-blood that I was named for, and the local hero of the original Tokyo. When I had intervened to save the shrine, I found that Inuyasha's name had somehow been lost during the four-hundred-odd years between my first departure from Japan and when I finally returned to find the last remnants of my home in jeopardy. Although I am not related to the original Inuyasha, our fates are somehow intertwined. Due to my amnesia, I have unclear origins, but I do know that my friends, who I met soon after my memories begin, were actually the companions of the great half-blood and the reincarnated woman. They never told where the two of them had gone, and I now wondered if the reincarnated priestess might have been the one they were waiting for all those times at the well, even though I had long doubted whether or not she existed. My thoughts were coming faster now. I felt like I was hovering near an important conclusion, maybe even the answer to the great puzzle that is my existence.

I have no memories of my life before I appeared in the thick forest not far from the tiny village that became Tokyo. That forest was called Inuyasha's forest, though both its name and the forest itself have disappeared since. As I wandered around with a sword that I couldn't use, a demon exterminator named Sango found me. I have no idea where I came from, and or why I am different from other people. I appeared within years of the original Inuyasha's disappearance, and I vaguely recall being a subject of interest for the townspeople for weeks. But I have no idea what happened to him. Miroku knew. Inuyasha was a close friend of his, so perhaps it was just difficult for him to talk about it, but Miroku also liked secrets.

But Inuyasha, the original one, is the god of the shrine that once held the Jewel of the Four Souls, the same shrine that now bears the name of the family that administers to it, Higurashi. If he is the god, he must be deceased. Perhaps I am, in some way, his replacement, though I could never come close to his legendary strength and cunning. And I am certainly no guardian of any shrine, not even the one of which I am sole benefactor.

My piecing together of scattered memories and information that had been swimming around in my mind for centuries was interrupted when I found myself standing in the courtyard of the Higurashi shrine. I looked around quickly, startled to find myself there so abruptly. It was distinctly familiar to me, even though its face had changed completely since the days of long ago when I lived here. Pulling myself together, I glanced quickly around and caught sight of my tree, and decided to conduct further investigations from there. It had grown much taller since the days I first beheld it, but I scaled the trunk to the branches fairly easily. The tree had been around even longer than I had, but then, like me, it is no ordinary tree. It is supposed to have magical properties, and perhaps for this reason, I have always been drawn to it. I even heard once, long ago, that it had the power to reach across time because of its long life, though I don't know how true that is.

From the branches high above the ground, I reflected that if I wanted to present myself to the Higurashi family, I would have to come up with an explanation of why I look exactly like the man who helped set it up so many years ago. Therefore, I certainly was not going to tempt fate and draw suspicion by showing up in the middle of the night. I had just settled myself in the upper branches with the intent on basking longer in the presence of my past when the door opened. I was so surprised that I almost fell out of the tree despite my precautions, and I was glad I had thought to hide myself.

It was the girl. It had been about fourteen years since I'd last seen her. She was twenty or so, and I wondered if she was in college now. It was a ridiculous thing to wonder while I was trying to stay hidden in a tree, but I wondered it all the same. I was so busy thanking the god Inuyasha that I was well hidden that it was a moment before I realized that she was making a beeline for my hiding place. Surely she could not be one of those shrine maidens that had actual powers! That might be a problem in the unlikely event it was true, but I was only a human, and not a particularly malicious one. There was nothing for her to sense. Still, I wasn't going to take any chances. I shifted so as to make myself as invisible as possible.

She stopped just below me. Hidden well I might be, but if she looked up, she was going to see me, darkness or no. But she seemed a little distracted. I took the opportunity to get a good look at her. She'd really grown up rather nicely. She was very pretty, perhaps even beautiful. Her black hair fell some inches past her shoulders, and her brown eyes had an aching sadness about them. Around her neck she wore a chain with a large pink stone in the shape of a perfect sphere. She reached up on her tiptoes to touch an almost invisible hole in the side of the tree, and after a moment, she broke abruptly into silent tears.

"Why did you do it?" She whispered. "I'll never understand." There was a pause. "I miss you, Inuyasha." She whispered finally, and walked slowly back towards the house, her head bowed.

As she did so, I almost fell out of the tree again. _Inuyasha_? Certainly she had not known I was there, and she obviously had not been talking to me. She had never even met me, and she could not know my name, my real name, even if she had. But there was only one other Inuyasha I knew of, in all of history, and that was the half-blood to whom I am so intrinsically linked. The idea that she might have been speaking to him was even more ridiculous than the idea that she might have spoken to me.

Once I was sure she was gone, I investigated the hole she had touched while speaking. It was high up, and very old, perhaps even centuries. I squinted in the darkness before glancing warily back toward the house. I drew out my cell phone and used its light to examine the hole more closely. It had been made by the bolt of a longbow, years and years in the past, when they had been common. I touched it warily, to see if the arrowhead remained, and, for the first time, remembered a time before the day I walked through Inuyasha's forest with my black hair awry and a battered sword I could not use held loosely in my hand.

_"Inuyasha!" I heard her voice, the voice I had come to so adore, in the background, laced with hate. I ignored her, concentrating on the pink bead in my hands, trying to convince myself that it's power would give me all that I wanted, that this victory made for her betrayal, that it was far preferable to spending the rest of my days as a human, lying in her arms. An arrow pierced my chest and even that small solace left me, falling from my slackened hands to the ground, and I was powerless to retrieve it. The arrow had pierced my heart, and pinned me to a tree, the god tree. _

_With the last of my strength I turned to look at her, allowing the pain into my eyes and disguising it as hate. There was so much I wanted to say, to accuse her of, but I had not the time. "You bitch, how could you?" I stuttered out as the sealing spell took hold. Then the world disappeared, disappeared before I had time to see, to realize that she bore terrible wounds, wounds that were even more fatal than my own, wounds she thought I had given her._

I snapped back into reality, and remember who I was. "_What_ was that?" I whispered hoarsely, steadying myself with a hand against the trunk of the tree and hoping that I would be rewarded with no more visions. That girl that had shot me, that was the girl from the shrine. As quickly as the idea hit me, I discounted it. We had been surrounded by forest, and no forest had surrounding the god tree for hundreds of years. The two women had seemed alike certainly, but there were differences. In the vision, the woman had worn the garb of a priestess. The forest around her was that of the time that I first remembered, which lay near the village that I had once called home, a village that had disappeared long ago.

I stumbled away from the tree, still in shock from the sheer vividness of my vision, and managed to make it down the stairs of the shrine more or less in one piece. But my mind was working again, and it was centered on what I had seen. Even though I possessed no more than cursory knowledge of the great half-blood, provided through the carefully abridged stories of Miroku and Sango, or the ignorant comments of the villagers, I knew one thing for certain.

After Kikyou, the great priestess in charge of the sacred jewel, had been wounded, believing her murder to be the half-demon, half-man boy she loved, she had sealed him to the god tree, the same one that I had sat in a few minutes ago. There he had remained for fifty years, until her reincarnation, the mysterious woman from the stories about Inuyasha, had released him to save her life. That woman had appeared as abruptly and inexplicably into the lives of those who had lived in the original Tokyo as I had. But was the sealing of Inuyasha what I had seen?

Had I seen Kikyou use her last strength to seal away the one she loved, to punish him for a betrayal he had not committed? Were the stories true? Had he really been tricked into stealing the jewel because he thought she had betrayed him, and she into killing him? I had certainly felt the sharp pain of betrayal. But why was I having visions of my namesake, through his eyes?

What about the girl that had come to speak to the god tree about Inuyasha? It was because of her that I'd had the vision at all. Why had her voice been so pained? Why had she cried? She couldn't-

No, that was impossible.

The daughter of the Higurashi Shrine couldn't possibly be the reincarnated priestess from the legends. All that had taken place more than 500 years in the past, and I knew for a fact that she was normal. I had seen her in childhood, and she had aged normally. She was not like me. No one was like me. I was utterly alone in this wide world. But it was really the only thing that made any sense.

I smacked myself, literally and physically, to bring myself to my senses. I was a modern businessman, not a medieval peasant. I had the gift, or at least the training, of logic, and elementary logic said that the daughter of the shrine could not possibly been involved in the adventure concerning the reappearance and eventual permanent disappearance of the Jewel of the Four Souls, an adventure that had occurred more than 500 years before she had even been born. Then, being the combination of the logical businessman and the medieval peasant that I am, I muttered something darkly to myself about witchcraft, and firmly resolved not to draw any conclusions until I had more information. I wandered off toward the hotel in a moderately – all right, very - confused state.

Despite my late night, I arose with the sun the following day, as my habit had always been. I managed to kill several hours by wandering around Tokyo, simply because I had nothing better to do. The one thing that I both love and hate about Tokyo is that it is always completely unrecognizable every time I return. I spent some time in the shopping districts, and located a real estate agent for when I decided to get an apartment. I had the feeling that I was going to be staying a while. For the first time in many years, I had a real Japanese breakfast.

It was a strange situation. I had been working for so long, and so hard, that I did not know what to do with free time, even though downtown Tokyo really is the place to go when one has free time. But somehow I managed to make it through the day, and wandered up the steps of the shrine just as the sun was beginning to set. The first person I saw was the old man, sweeping the steps just outside the shrine of Inuyasha. I suppose they still pray to their god, even if they do not know who it is. I could tell them, but then I would have to explain where I came by that information, and that might be difficult. I might be the benefactor of the shrine, but that does not make me omniscient.

When he saw me, he turned to greet me, probably thinking that I was a tourist, but when he caught sight of my face, he blinked. "Mr. Menachi?" He asked in astonishment. I had been prepared for this. I had not honestly expected him to recognize me so easily, after all a lot of time had passed, but I like to be prepared.

"Yes." I bowed my head toward him, allowing surprise to pervade my features.

"But that's impossible! It's been fifty years!" The old man's jaw dropped in absolute disbelief. I had not changed at all, of course, except that I wear my hair longer these days.

"Yes." I said again, and explained. "I am sorry to alarm you. My name is Menachi Hideko. You must have thought I was my grandfather, Menachi Genko, the man who they appointed first official benefactor of the shrine. I'm told that I look quite a bit like him."

Understanding dawned in the old man's eyes, though he still looked quite astonished. "The resemblance is amazing, Mr. Menachi." He told me, bowing again. "You look exactly as your grandfather did when I first met him."

"Thank you. It's nice to know I bear some small resemblance to him. I respected my grandfather very much." I made a show of looking around at the shrine. "He always loved this place, you know, and he regretted that later in life he couldn't find the time to return here. The job of benefactor has passed to me, and out of respect for my grandfather I wish to make a better job of it than my father did." I paused. "I see you've really done a lot with this place."

The old man looked embarrassed. "Thank you, Sir, but I couldn't have done it without the help of your grandfather."

At that moment, the door to the house opened, and a woman of middle age walked out. The sight of her tugged vaguely at my memory. "Father," she called, pulling her cell phone from her pocket, "have you seen Souta? It's about time he came home from school. I hope he isn't at the arcade again. He hasn't answered my mail." Her eyes fell upon me. "Oh, a visitor. Good day."

I bowed my head to her and returned the greeting. "This is Mr. Menachi, the benefactor of our shrine. Mr. Menachi, this is my daughter, Mai."

"Oh." She said. "It is nice to meet you, Mr. Menachi." Then she looked closer at me. "You look somehow familiar. Have you ever visited us before, Mr. Menachi?"

I shook my head, a little surprised. I had stopped openly visiting the shrine under the name of Menachi Genko long before this woman had been born. "No, ma'am. I've never been here before. My grandfather only recently passed away, leaving the care of the shrine to me."

"Oh, I am sorry." She bowed her head and I did the same in response.

I looked over at the god tree, and the hole that had touched off that strange vision caught my attention. "This was always his most favorite thing, this shrine. He always told me that he hoped that this shrine would somehow free him from the sins that he committed in the business world." I smiled. It wasn't exactly true, but since I was posing as the grandson and 'new' benefactor, I wanted to assure them that I was not going to try to change anything. "I can see that he was right when he said that you'd really improved it. I've seen the original pictures. It was just a bit run down."

"Well," the old man said, "That was because this shrine has existed for over 500 years. The history of it is…" He went off on a lecture on the history of the shrine, a history that I was well aware of. I only really listened when he was talking about the sacred jewel of the Four Souls, and then only because it had always amused me to hear people recite history wrong. I was surprised to find that he was very accurate on the ancient legend though, giving details I had never heard a historian repeat before. It was very close to the original story that I had heard only years after the adventure itself had ended. Privately I wondered where he had gotten his information. I had never come across any books that had the 'myth' down so accurately. Most did not mention it at all. As he neared the part where Inuyasha disappeared (no one had ever decided what had happened to him; I'd heard a few dozen different endings), a young boy of about fourteen walked up, closely followed by the girl I had seen the night before.

"Grandpa!" The boy said. "Are you telling stories again?"

"You never stop, do you?" The girl said, seeming exasperated. She turned to me, shading her eyes from the setting sun, though she could probably see little more than my outline in the direct light. "I'm sorry if you were bored; he gets a little overexcited about the old legends."

"I was telling him the story of Inu-" The old man began, but was cut off when his daughter jabbed him in sharply in the ribs and looked meaningfully at the girl. She was standing in front of them, so she did not see this, but she obviously knew what he had been about to say. There was a brief flicker of intense sadness in her eyes, and then it was gone.

"Well, it _is_ the story of our shrine." The old man muttered reproachfully to his daughter, who ignored him, turning toward me with a bright smile.

"Hi." The girl said to me then. "I'm Kagome, and this is my brother, Souta."

"Menachi Hideko." I replied with a bow. "Please remember me kindly."

"He's the benefactor of our shrine, Kagome." Her grandfather told her.

"The benefactor?" She questioned.

"My grandfather was the one who convinced the city to have this shrine protected. He had a lot of excess money, so he invested some of it here." I answered with a grin, even though she probably couldn't see it. I'd gotten so used to lying that it was kind of fun now. But there was something about her too, something that made me want to make her smile. "I think he hoped that it would save his soul. Being a businessman, he had a lot of sins on his conscience."

She smiled back at me. "Would you like to join us for dinner" Her mother offered. "We're having Oden."

"_We are_?" The girl, Kagome asked excitedly. "Oh, that's great!"

"I would be delighted. This shrine was my grandfather's favorite thing, and I'm afraid he infected me with his passion. I'd like to learn as much as possible. It seems to have a more interesting story behind it than most." I followed them in. The girl stepped back to talk to me.

"Did he bore you long?" She asked me abruptly.

"I'm sorry?"

"My grandfather. He can ramble on for quite some time about the old stories." She was watching her grandfather as she spoke, perhaps to ensure that he did not hear what she said.

"Oh no, I was quite interested, actually. He was telling me about the sacred jewel. Did it actually have all the power that I've heard it did?"

"Yes." She answered. "But it wasn't the sort of power you would want. Anyone – well, it was said that anyone who came in contact with the jewel tended to suffer terrible tragedy soon after. It always hunted by the evil and degenerate. The jewel couldn't be used by humans, it was a demon's treasure." She turned to look at me. We were at a different angle now, so she didn't have to squint so much. She drew in a sharp breath, and looked away sharply, stopping suddenly and putting a hand to her heart.

"What is it?" I asked, alarmed.

She was silent for several moments, but finally looked up at me with a forced smile. "It's nothing. You just look like someone I once knew."

"Bad memories?" I asked gently.

"You couldn't possibly imagine." She answered. "But it's all in the past, long in the past. There's nothing I can do about it, and there's no use crying about it now."

I was astonished a little more during dinner at the proficiency of the family in the old legends of their shrine. I had found that usually people were grossly mistaken about their own history, but they were almost universally accurate in what they told me. They even told me a few things that I myself had not been aware of, which probably meant that they were not true. But one thing in particular was interesting enough that I filed it away to think about later. This thing that caught my attention above all else was about the shrine's well. Back in the feudal era, my friends had been very cryptic about it, but I knew it had certain supernatural powers. They had called it the Bone-eater's Well, because things – usually bones of defeated demons – put in the well disappeared after a few days. But I knew there was more to the well than just that, particularly because it had always seemed to hold some kind of meaning for my friends. The fact that they kept it from me always made me suspicious that the well was somehow key to the mystery that was me.

The Higurashi family told me that the well legendary had powers to transport a select few between times. I made a mental note to do a bit of investigating later tonight, once they were all asleep, as long as I wasn't too tired.

My curiosity did indeed cause me to pay a nocturnal visit to the shrine that very night. I did not wander up the stairs this time. I was very careful. Last time I had barely escaped detection. There was something about the shrine that disarmed me somehow, and I wanted to be ready for it. Feeling like some kind of thief, I slunk through the shrine in the dead of night. It was the night of the New Moon, the first of the month by the old calendar. The complete darkness made it all seem that more dramatic. I went directly to my destination, well, as straight as one can go when one is slinking from shadow to shadow like the hero in some bad drama. But there was something about this night that made me feel particularly theatrical. The very air seemed to have something magical in it, though I was probably imagining it. My emotions sometimes run away with me, particularly when my sense of the mystical is involved.

I eventually arrived at the well house, once my theatrical urges had been exhausted for the moment. At some point someone had built a building over the well. It was nice enough, I suppose, though I didn't really see the point. It had happened before the shrine came under the care of the Higurashi's, but they'd fixed it up a little. I opened one of the doors and slipped inside. I was happy to find it was so easy, as I'd come prepared to pick the lock if I had to. However, I had not prepared for what happened next.

I immediately perceived that I was not alone, and I drew back against the wall. My eyes adjusted and I recognized who it was that had preceded me into the well house and three o-clock in the was the daughter of the shrine, Higurashi Kagome.

"It took you long enough." She said impatiently. Despite the hour, she was fully dressed. "I've been waiting for hours. I was about to give up hope that you'd get here before morning, Menachi Hideko." She informed me quietly.

"W-what?" I stuttered the question, a little shocked and embarrassed at being caught. Where were my instincts? How did she know I would come? At the same time my mind began to work on a suitable excuse, but I was hard pressed. "Miss Higurashi-"

"Call me Kagome." She interrupted. _Kagome. _The name tugged at the edges of my memory. She stood at the foot of the stairs, leaning against the ancient sides of the well itself, but now she started up the stairs toward me. She was remarkably fearless to approach a man wandering around her property in the middle of the night. A bit afraid of what she was going to do, like maybe raise the alarm, I backed up, and found my back against the door that I had foolishly closed behind me. I could easily get away now, but then she might call the police. I had spent a lot of time on my identity as Menachi Hideko, and I did not really want him to get a criminal record. Besides, she said she had been waiting for me, and I wanted to know how she knew I would come. I had not been very obvious in my reaction at dinner, so she was either very perceptive, or something else was involved here.

Near me now, she continued. "It would make me happy if you would do so, for reasons that might soon become clear to you." My eyes were fully adjusted now, and I could see her face very clearly, perhaps because she was standing right in front of me. The sadness was in her eyes again, but her eyes also showed signs of absolute decision, for good or ill.

"This isn't what it looks like, Miss Higurashi." I began, but she cut me off again.

"Kagome." She said quite firmly. "I knew that you would come here tonight, Mr. Menachi." She said.

"How?" I asked. Kagome, as she wished me to call her, obviously had something she wanted to say, and I was prepared to play along for the moment.

"I had a hunch. My intuition has become fine tuned, so I decided to trust it at the cost of a good night's sleep." She looked me in the eye and stood up straighter. "You showed a lot of interest in the old stories of our shrine at dinner, Mr. Menachi."

"If I'm supposed to call you Kagome, then you can call me Hideko." I told her. I figured we should get the formalities out of the way. I had an idea that there was something very important afoot here and I didn't want to unnecessarily complicate things. "My grandfather always had a great interest in this shrine, and in the peculiar stories in its history. He infected me with his passion when I was quite young."

She nodded. "My grandfather tells me that you look a great deal like your grandfather. He liked him very much, and also said that the likeness is in more than looks."

"Is that so?"

"Your grandfather apparently also had an interest in the old stories of the shrine. It's hard to find people who have the time and interest to listen to the stories. The people of modern times seldom have any use for tales of times long past. People don't believe in magic, and they don't have any use for things that they can't explain away with logic. I myself paid no attention to my grandfather's stories until I was fifteen."

"Did something change then?" I asked. Her little speech had interested me a great deal.

"Oh yes, something happened when I was fifteen. On the day of my fifteenth birthday actually." She paused, and looked at me.

"Was there something, Kagome?" I asked, using her name to refer to her directly for the first time.

Her face changed briefly when I said her name, and a desperate hope shone in her eyes for a moment. "Are you an honorable man, Hideko?" She asked suddenly. I ask because it's important." She told me. "Can you keep a promise? Would you violate a sworn oath?"

"I can keep a promise." I answered. "What is this about, Kagome?" I asked, my curiosity finally getting the better of me.

"You showed great interest in the story of the jewel, but all we could really tell you was the legend. Would you like to know more?" I nodded, a bit confused. I had always wanted to know the details of the story, but how could she know what even I did not? "Well, if you promise not to tell a single soul, I am prepared to tell the true story of Inuyasha and the Jewel of the Four Souls." She told me solemnly.

There was a long pause as we had a mini-staring contest with one another. I was the first to speak after the silence of indiscernible length. "What do you mean?"

"I know what really happened." She answered quietly.

I decided not to question that just yet. "Why do I have to swear an oath?" That part was a bit too theatrical, even for me.

"Because most people would think I was completely insane, but if the wrong person heard the story, I would be in far more danger than I am even now." She answered without the slightest hint of untruth or embellishment.

I again decided not to ask for details just yet. I had something else at the moment that I was more curious about. "So why would you trust _me_ with this story?" There was no reason that I could say. Of course, I would give a substantial part of my fortune to find out about that legend. It was the legend of my home, and I had always felt slighted to reside with the very people who had lived it and yet remain robbed of the true circumstances of the legend. But even if she did somehow have what I lacked, why would she share it with me of all people?

"I don't know really." She told me. "You are different from other people."

"I'm rich." I replied in a self-mocking sort of way.

"It has nothing to do with that." She said, looking slightly affronted. "I mean you aren't exactly human." I opened my mouth to protest, hundreds of questions and not a few disturbing scenarios filling my mind. If it were found out that I don't age, the consequences would be dire. I would probably become some kind of lab rat. I had gone to great lengths over centuries to be able to escape detection and live as I wished, and suddenly, out of nowhere, this little girl had seen through the façade of half a millennium without the slightest effort. She held up her hand. "Don't take offense." Obviously she had not realized what was going through my mind.

"If I'm not human, then what am I?" I challenged in my best mocking tone, trying to find out just how much she knew.

"I don't actually know." She answered, looking thoughtful. "When I first met you, I thought that maybe you were a demon with some very sophisticated spells concealing your true form. I can usually see through a demon's disguise fairly easily, so I was a little worried, but as time went by, I realized that I had been mistaken. You aren't a demon, or even a half-blood. And you aren't a dead, because you don't feel anything like Kikyou did."

She was musing aloud to herself and didn't notice my reaction to the name of the long dead priestess. I didn't _feel_ like Kikyou? Kikyou, the woman I had seen so briefly in a vision last night, a vision I had been exposed to because of this delicate woman before me. "You feel exactly like a normal human, but there is a slight aura, and aura unlike anything I've ever seen. I have absolutely no idea what you are, and you don't have to tell me if you don't want to. You could be here to kill me, but somehow I don't think so. I've been carrying this story around with me for three years, and on seeing you, I realized that I've reached breaking point. I went through hell, and I'm very tired of being the only one who knows about it. How about it, Menachi Hideko? Can I trust you?"

She was willing to trust me, even though she did not know what I was? I had never met anyone who was able to see straight to the heart of things like this girl. She did not seem concerned with the fact that I was not exactly human, but whether or not she could – confide in me. I realized now that Kagome wanted to confide in me about something, something very important. And what was that other thing? _You could be here to kill me, but somehow I don't think so._ What did she mean by that? Obviously she had already decided to trust me before I'd even shown up, but her tone as she had uttered these words had been strangely void of concern and emotion, as if she was used to people trying to kill her. My curiosity was increasing with every passing moment.

"Yes."

She took me out under the god tree. "How much do you know?" She asked first. "I want to know where to start." She added when I just stared back at her.

"Oh." I said. "There was a magical jewel, the Shikon no Tama, Jewel of the four souls. It had an immense power, and was sought after by many, mostly demons. But it was in the care of a powerful priestess named Kikyou. But her downfall came when a half-blood demon named Inuyasha somehow stole the jewel from her. She used her last power to seal him to a tree and died. The jewel was cremated with her and disappeared for fifty years." I paused. "Am I right so far?"

She nodded. "There was a bit more to it than that, but it's all correct." She told me, and indicated that I continue.

"Um- Fifty years later a girl who was supposed to be the reincarnation of Kikyou appeared. She got into a fight with a centipede demon just underneath the tree and the still sealed Inuyasha. The jewel, which had been hidden in her body, was torn out, and to save her own life, the girl released Inuyasha from the spell. He killed the demon, and then attacked the girl, though she somehow survived. Soon after, the jewel was somehow shattered into shards, which were hidden all over Japan. Inuyasha and the reincarnated priestess joined reluctantly together to repair the jewel. They managed to succeed with the help of a few friends." I made a show of trying to remember. I wanted to be careful not to betray the fact that I had known their friends personally.

"There was a monk, I think, and a demon slayer, as well as a fox demon cub, and a giant cat demon." I said slowly, and looked at her, pretending to wonder if I was correct. She nodded. "But after the jewel was completed, Inuyasha and the priestess disappeared. I've heard that he died." Was I imagining things, or were her eyes shining with unshed tears? "That's really all I know. How much of it was wrong?"

"None of it was strictly wrong." She answered slowly. "But there was a lot more to it than that. She stood up and pointed to the nick in the tree's bark that had provided me with that interesting vision. "This is where Inuyasha was sealed by Kikyou's sacred arrow. He did steal the jewel from her, but only because he thought that she had betrayed him. Kikyou and Inuyasha were in love." She paused and I was certain that I detected bitterness in her last statement. "That very day, she had taken the Shikon no Tama out to meet him. He was going to use it to become human, so they could be together. But an apparition called Naraku interfered. He appeared in the form of Inuyasha, stole the jewel and mortally wounded her. She made it back to the town where she sealed Inuyasha to the tree and died."

"Fifty years later, as you said, the girl who was the reincarnation of Kikyou appeared, released Inuyasha, and had the Shikon no Tama ripped from her body. Inuyasha vanquished the demon, but then turned on her. But the village priestess cast a subduing spell on him in the shape of a rosary. Whenever the girl said a certain word, he would slam to the ground, face first. So the reincarnated priestess survived the night. That very next day, the jewel was stolen by a crow demon. Though Kikyou had been a master archer, the girl wasn't. Since the jewel gave the crow the power of instant regeneration, she took its dismembered foot, tied it to an arrow and let it fly. The foot guided the arrow back to the crow, but the girl's arrow also shattered the jewel." Kagome stopped. "Am I boring you?"

"No." I answered. "Go on. This is the part where they team up, isn't it?"

"Right." She answered. "The priestess could see the shards, and Inuyasha had the strength to fight demos for them. Without one, the other would be lost. But immediately, they ran into complications. The girl had to return to her world often."

"Wait. Her world?"

"Yes. She wasn't from feudal Japan, but somewhere else in time. There were other problems. Inuyasha's older brother, a full demon appeared, looking for his father's grave. Inuyasha was the guardian of his father's grave, though he did not know it. His brother wanted their father's sword, which was actually Inuyasha's inheritance. Tetsusaiga was supposed to be able to kill 100 demons with one swing. Inuyasha's brother tried to take it, but the barrier rejected him because he was a full demon. It accepted Inuyasha, but he couldn't pull it from its pedestal. While the brother's fought, the girl happened to grab the hilt and drew it, and gave it to Inuyasha. It did not transform to its real form until he used it to protect her. Tetsusaiga was actually a fang, the fang of their father, and a powerful weapon, and Inuyasha used it to cut off the arm of his older brother."

Kagome spoke for hours, telling me of the resurrection of Kikyou, the appearance of Naraku and the many battles they'd fought with him and his henchmen, about their friends, Miroku, Sango, Shippou, Kirara the two-tailed cat demon, and Myonga, the flea, advisor to Inuyasha. She told me of Kouga, the wolf demon, and how he fell in love with the girl, much to the irritation of Inuyasha, and of the continued contact with Inuyasha's brother, who changed as time went by. Where once he had held all humans in contempt, he began traveling with a small human girl. And, near dawn, Kagome reached the tale of the final battle.

"They won." She said. "But they couldn't have if they hadn't worked together. When it was all over, Sesshoumaru healed Sango's brother, Kohaku, with the Tensaiga, which could save one hundred lives with one stroke. No one wanted the jewel, because they had all seen the sadness it had brought. Inuyasha took it, and appeared to make a wish, though when he opened his eyes he looked disappointed. Then he made a decision. He gave the jewel to the reincarnated priestess, and then went to hell with Kikyou so that she could finally rest."

Kagome stopped, as if her tale was ended, but I was not about to accept that. A tale as good as the one she had been weaving could not possibly end so abruptly. "That's it?" I asked in disbelief. "Inuyasha went to hell with Kikyou, and that was it?"

"Yes." She answered.

I struggled to get my ire under control. It was not her fault if the story ended there. "I only have one question." I said to her.

"What's that?"

"How is it that you know all this?"

She looked surprised. "Haven't you figured it out yet? I am the reincarnated priestess, current guardian of the Jewel of the Four Souls."

I stared at her. "You were the girl-" I stopped, trying to adjust. Certainly the only reason I believed her claims was because I was so tired. And yet her story, and the story of her family had been so accurate.

"Yes." She answered. "We told you earlier that this well allowed the fated to cross through time. Inuyasha and I were the only ones who could ever use it, except for the centipede demon. It was she who snatched me from modern Tokyo to feudal Japan, where I met Inuyasha. That was the day of my fifteenth birthday."

"Wait a minute. Doesn't that mean you have-?"

"The jewel?" She finished. "Of course." She pointed to the small pink bead hanging around her neck. "This is the jewel, cause of so much pain and death, and the downfall of Inuyasha."

So that was what had happened to him. I wondered if I might have been happier in my ignorance. Yet something still seemed to be missing. "Was it really hidden in your body?"

She nodded, and pulled the hem of her shirt up a little to show me the scar just above her hip. It was all fitting too well together to explain away. "It was right here. I was born with it, though I hadn't any idea it was even there until it started glowing. Unfortunately, that was when she tore it from my side and everything began."

"I still don't know why you chose to share this with me." I said to her.

"I was so tired of carrying that story around. My family knows that he died, but it isn't the same. I didn't really want to tell them everything, especially since my brother worshipped Inuyasha. They don't know the details, that he consciously chose death and Kikyou over me. I also told a friend of mine, Hojo. He believed me, for some reason. When we first met, he kept asking me out, and I always had to call a rain check because of my life on the other side of the well." She smiled, a bit lost in her memories. "My grandfather always made up exotic illnesses to explain my absences from school. I'm surprised anyone dared to get near me, and Hojo was always trying to give me gifts that would help the health problems that I didn't have."

"But even so, Hojo doesn't really understand. No one does, really, because the whole thing seems so unreal to people of the modern world. But you seem to have an understanding of the time period, or at least the legends, so I thought you might be able to understand better. I've wanted to tell someone else for a long time, but you were the first person I met that I thought might believe me, and who might care."

I looked at her for a moment in silence. "That was the most amazing story I've ever heard. It's hard to believe that it's actually true, but I do all the same." I said. "But aren't you in danger?" I was thinking of that offhand comment she'd made earlier that I might be here to kill her, and of all the demons I knew of that were in hiding. This girl was only nineteen or so, but considering the things she had been through since she was fifteen, she wouldn't be totally defenseless. But I had met some of those demons that disguised themselves as humans, and I never wanted to have to fight one of them.

"I've been attacked, but not nearly as much as I thought I would be. For some reason, most demons don't seem to be able to detect the presence of the jewel here. I've managed to dispatch the few that have attacked me. After all, I still have my bow, and Sango taught me how to make my own arrows. My family is aware of the danger, though I don't think they realize the extent of it."

The sun was starting to come up. Kagome shaded her eyes. "You know, dark nights like this one always made Inuyasha nervous. On the night of the New Moon, his body became that of a human, and he usually had a hard time dealing with it. We always seemed to run into trouble on the first day, and he had to fight in his human form, in which he couldn't even use Tetsusaiga, and he had to make sure his enemies didn't find out about his weakness."

"He had a human form?"

"Yes. You know, that is probably the greatest reason I chose to tell you this. You look exactly like Inuyasha did on the night of the New Moon, when he was in his human form."

"What?" I said wondering if I had heard wrong. "I look like Inuyasha?"

"You do in his human form at least. You're missing white hair, golden eyes, pointed dog ears, and claws. Your attitude is a little different, too. He was really irritable." She looked sad as she remembered the boy she had once loved, the boy who had abandoned her, chosen death and her previous incarnation over her. "Inuyasha would fight at the drop of a hat. That was one of the reasons we always got into trouble on the New Moon. When he was in his usual form, Inuyasha was very strong, so it didn't matter if he got into fights with demons. But when he was human, stripped of the Tetsusaiga and even his claws, he didn't always stop to think that he was at a disadvantage."

"He was reckless?"

She looked rueful. "Actually, it was usually because he was trying to protect me. He was actually fairly intelligent, but he didn't always stop to think before he did things."

We heard the sound of the front door of the house slam shut, and saw Kagome's brother coming toward us. Instinctively, I jumped into the tree, even though he had already seen me. He walked over to Kagome.

"What are you doing out here this early in the morning? And who's with you?" He looked up into the tree. "Mr. Menachi?" He said in surprise. I looked down at him from where I was crouched on a branch. Souta eyes widened, and he looked closely at my face, as if there was something he recognized, then shook his head. Apparently he saw the resemblance too, but could not place it. He turned back to his older sister. "Kagome, what is Mr. Menachi doing in the tree?" He asked her with an eyebrow raised. "And besides that, what is he doing here at five in the morning?" Suddenly he laughed and elbowed her suggestively. "Do you like him, Kagome? It's about time you got a boyfriend."

Kagome looked at her brother for a moment, ignoring his insinuations. "He was curious about some of the things he heard at dinner." She said, flicking the pink bead hanging around her neck meaningfully.

"You didn't tell him, did you?" Souta asked incredulously. I watched all this from my tree. I had not seen a good reason to come down yet, though I knew I was behaving very , very oddly. If her grandfather came out just now, he was probably going to wonder whether the new benefactor was sane. Kagome just stared at Souta in response to his question. "You did! Why? He's a stranger."

"Souta," Kagome said thoughtfully. "Does Mr. Menachi remind you of anyone you knew about three years ago?"

Souta looked back up at me. I managed a half-hearted scowl. He looked back at his sister with a look of disbelief. "He looks just a little bit like-" He paused, obviously reluctant to finish his sentence because it seemed preposterous. "Big brother Inuyasha." He finished in a whisper.

"I thought so too. It's nice to have a second opinion." Kagome said firmly. "He showed a lot of interest in the stories we told him last night. He showed up at the well house to investigate the well's ability to transport people between times, and I was waiting for him. Souta, he looks exactly like Inuyasha did on the night of the New Moon."

"What do you think it means Kagome?" Her brother asked her.

"I don't know. Give me some time to think about it and I might be able to come up with some sort of idea. But you have school soon." She smirked at him.

"So do you!"

"Actually, I don't have class until this afternoon." Kagome informed him, smirking again. She looked up at me. "Are you going to come down from there?"

I landed next to her. "What?" I asked defensively.

"Nothing. Why don't you have breakfast with us? We can tell my mother that you came early."

"Actually, I can't." I told her. "I have an appointment. I am apartment hunting. But why don't you come by my hotel later? There's something I need to ask you. Do you have your cell phone?"

"Yes." She answered, fishing it out of her pocket. Ah, Japan, land of the ever-present cell phones. We exchanged information and I left the shrine just as the sun was coming up.

I had lied to Kagome. I had led her to believe that there was something in particular that I wanted to talk to her about. There was not. However, it hadn't been so much a lie as it had been an untruth. My statement had implied that there was something specific that I wanted to discuss with her. There was not, just a personal yet persistent yearning for her company that I did not understand but did not wish to question. But it bothered me that I did not understand. There was something I was missing, and that made me feel like I was not in control. It was that more than anything else that got under my skin. Already there was so much in my life that I could not even begin to understand, and I was not prepared to deal with anything else, however minor. But was this minor?

Kagome did show up to my hotel later that night, and reluctantly consented to come up to my room. Really, the word 'room' was used loosely. It was really a series of rooms, as it should be for what I was paying. I had become a bit soft in my old age and like having luxuries. It was nice enough, but not as pleasing as the apartment I had seen earlier that day in my search for more permanent lodgings here in Tokyo. We talked over dinner, which I called up room service for. It is usually a given that room service isn't usually the best food in the world, but the hotel I had chosen to stay at had a particularly good five-star restaurant downstairs, so I had trusted to their reputation and I was not disappointed.

I was relieved to find that Kagome didn't seem irritated that I had misled her. During our little talk last night, I'd really started to like her. She was the first woman I had ever met that I was not certain would totally alienate me when she found out the truth about my rather lengthy existence, even if I was not sure how I knew that. Perhaps it was true what was said, that birds of a feather fly together. At least I was hoping so. I was very tired of dealing with my interminably long existence alone. Over my life, I had met any number of people who wished only for eternal youth, but had no idea what they would be getting themselves into. I have had it for five centuries and rarely enjoyed it. Instead, I lost the one's I loved, had to watch them grow old and die. Being forced to watch everyone you've ever known die is not particularly pleasant, and after it ends you are back to the beginning, having to make new friends in order to continue your imitation existence, and knowing all along that you are only beginning the cycle of emotional pain all over again, but equally sure that there is no way to avoid it. I think that what people are really after when they wish for eternal youth is for the good times to last forever. Eternal youth isn't much of a prize if there's no one to share it with. At least for most people, that is.

But in the defense of my little white lie, I did have some questions that had been swimming around in my brain for several centuries that I intended on running by my guest. Of course, I had to be very careful, and very vague, to ensure that she wouldn't suspect anything. I might be convinced that Kagome is different from any other woman I've ever known, but I'm still nowhere near ready to finally rip off the mask of Menachi Hideko, bare it all and tell her what is in my heart. After all, different she _might_ be, more accepting she _might_ be, but she _might _not be. I wasn't really ready to take that chance just yet. After all, I'd only known her for twenty-four hours or so, and I was not really all that anxious for my hopes to be dashed. And, even after all these years, I was still Japanese, and I still walk around issues long before addressing them directly.

"So…" Kagome said hesitantly, and I realized that I'd slipped off into my own little world in the middle of our conversation. Such bad manners. Where in the world had I picked those up?

"What is it?" I queried, forcing myself back to reality.

"How old are you?" She asked. My inner turmoil must have shown on my face. "Oh, you don't have to tell me." She said quickly. "I was just wondering if you were in college."

"Oh." I said. I had gone to college, at Oxford no less, about fifty years ago. I liked to enroll every hundred years or so. I was giving some thought to having a go at an MBA program at Harvard one of these days. "I was, but I got bored and wandered off." I laughed at her incredulous expression. "I already was making enough money at father's business, so I just left. I might go back someday. But you're in college, aren't you?"

"Yes. Tokyo University. I'm majoring in Theology."

"Theology? Religious studies?" I questioned with a laugh. "Is that the shrine family heritage?"

"I guess." She answered, laughing as well. "Actually, I was hoping I might run into something that would help me increase my powers. Even though the shrine is not often attacked, I ca not help but think that someday, whatever it is that is preventing the demons from sensing the presence of the jewel will disappear, and I want to be ready for it." She looked rueful. "I'm not as good a shot as Kikyou was."

"Any luck?" I asked, wondering if it was possible for someone to learn the powers of a priestess from a book. Well, anything could happen, really.

Kagome looked rueful. "Not really. But I have noticed any number of instances where Miroku was anything but a good monk. He was very naughty, it seems, though not in the same way he was when I knew him. I guess he kept his promises to Sango." I nodded slowly, reflecting that her statement was certainly true. "But we knew that then," she continued, "it didn't take a year of study in theology for me to realize that. And apparently Buddah didn't seem to put out with him, considering that he never lost his sacred abilities. Not to mention that he didn't get swallowed by the Kazaana. But, surprisingly enough, the studies are interesting, maybe because I've seen a lot of the miraculous stuff happen in real life."

"'That might take the edge off the droning of the professors, or rather, give it some edge." I said.

"It certainly gives me an edge over my classmates. But you know what they say about primary sources, they can't always be trusted to see the big picture."

About an hour later Kagome realized what time it was and got up to go. "Wait a minute, and I'll go with you." I told her, getting my coat. "It's dangerous at night." I added, ignoring the fact that Tokyo was not really dangerous at all.

I paused a moment at the closet, looking into the darkness where the Tetsusaiga lay hidden, suddenly hit by an irrational urge to take it with me. Which of course was absurd. Carrying around a sword in modern Tokyo? I could at least have the sense to get a concealable one if I felt the need to travel so armed. Shaking my head in a fruitless effort to rid myself of the uneasy feeling that had so suddenly hit me, I followed Kagome out the door and down into the night air of the largest city in the world.

We were a block from the shrine when we were attacked. I sensed the demon behind us first and tackled Kagome to the ground just as the demon's claws slashed where we'd been standing a mere moment before. I jumped quickly to my feet and fell into a fighting stance, knowing all too well that an unarmed human does not stand much of a chance against a demon, particularly the sort that managed to survive to the common era.

But I was stunned into a moment of immobility when I got a good look at the demon we were being attacked by. It was a low level demon, one incapable of disguising itself as a human. What was a low-level forest demon doing in Tokyo attacking us? I had always thought they had all died out long ago, since they had not been able to adapt to the changing environment of the world. It was probably after the jewel of course, but Kagome had told me that most demons could not sense it, or at least did not come after it.

As the demon repositioned for a second pass, I got ready to fight what would probably be a very short fight, and my last, mentally cursing myself a fool. After feeling that monstrous evil power the other night, I should have thought to be better prepared. What had happened to the cautiousness that had always been such a big part of my character? Even so, it was a bit late for regrets. I got ready to die, wondering what really happened beyond the veil. But before I had the opportunity to find out, there was a flash – one I recognized, it was the flash of the blade of a Japanese sword. The demon fell before me, dead.

"I would have thought the two of you would know better than to leave your respective houses unarmed. I see I was mistaken." A voice said from the shadows, accompanied by the sound of the life-saving katana being sheathed. There was no mistaking that deep, resonate voice, even though it had been quite some time since I had last heard it.

"What are you doing here, Sesshoumaru?" I asked in surprise.


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

"Wait a minute." Kagome said. "You know Sesshoumaru?"

I turned to her, just as stunned. "What? You don't mean that you do as well!" I knew him from long ago. At some point, we had noticed that neither of us had managed to die yet. Sesshoumaru was a full demon, and an incredibly powerful one, one that had disguised himself as a human in order to survive in the modern era, though he had held out longer than most. He did not like humans very much, but I had a feeling that something had happened long ago to convince him not to take all humans at face value. Unlike most demons, he could stand the company of humans fairly easily, which was how he had become so successful in business, much like I had. We were not exactly friends, more like acquaintances that had known one another for a **long **time. The fact that I knew Sesshoumaru made sense from a logical perspective considering the fact that neither of us had managed to change any since the Feudal Era, but why in the world would Kagome know the Lord of the Western Lands?

"I've known him for a long time." Kagome told me, interrupting my thoughts. "I first met him while I was in the Feudal Era." She looked me over carefully with narrowed eyes. "But how do you know him?"

I looked at her with a slightly pained look on my face. "Would you believe that we're business partners?" I asked without much hope. It might have explained our acquaintance we met the businessman Sesshoumaru. But seeing as he had just saved us from a demon, dressed in his traditional robes, and with that crazy demon sword he had picked up somewhere long before I met him, and that I had forgotten to be surprised about any of it, there was no way she was going to buy it.

"Not likely." She returned. "You didn't seem altogether surprised to be attacked by that thing – you knew it was there before I did, and you expect me to believe that you and Sesshoumaru are business partners?" She crossed her arms. "Last night I didn't ask you to explain exactly what you are, but I think now I am going to have to insist."

"You have a problem, Kagome." Sesshoumaru interrupted in his quiet voice. "All the demons in captivity have escaped, and they are migrating toward this shrine in great numbers." Then he turned to me. "What are you doing here?"

"I used to live here, you know." I said defensively.

He raised an eyebrow. "Ho? I should have known that the two of you would find each other eventually."

"What do you mean?" Kagome said in a slightly suspicious voice.

"The demons in captivity have escaped?" I asked him. "How is that?"

"I don't know. Some idiot human probably forgot they are dangerous for his kind. All the demons that were in the underworld fighting pits are now roaming the city unfettered. I have been here all night. The shrine has been attacked several times already." He looked at Kagome. "I assume you're carrying it around your neck like always?" He asked.

"Of course." She answered, "But I don't understand. What's all this about captive demons? And what is he? How do you know each other? And why does he look like-?"

"Why don't you ask him?" Sesshoumaru interrupted her, and looked at me, but I was a little distracted and pretended not to see it. To be absolutely honest, I was avoiding the issue, and using my concern about what he had told me to do it. I still was not sure that he was not crying wolf. How could those demons have gotten out? Could it not just be some random demons that have been hiding out in Japan that sensed the jewel and had come to Tokyo to get it? Outlandish as it sounded, it was still more believable than the idea that the demons held by the underworld had escaped.

"This is serious." I mused, pacing the sidewalk. "How could they have possibly escaped? I've seen the security they've put on the pits. There's no possible way-" I stopped abruptly and my head shot up. "They must have been released. There's no other way."

Kagome was watching me, her eyes still narrowed. She did not seem to be afraid that I was there to hurt her, even though I had mislead her. That was probably partly because, as she had said, her intuition told her that I could be trusted, but probably more because Sesshoumaru knew me, and was not the least bit concerned.

She spoke finally. "We aren't far from my house, why don't we pick things up from there? If we're quiet, we probably won't wake my family up. And if we do…well maybe they should hear this anyway." She looked appraisingly at Sesshoumaru. "If things are as serious as _he_ so obviously thinks they are, the shrine is going to be in even more danger. However, when they see him they might be a little surprised." She looked him over for a moment. "So…is there a particular reason you're dressed so, um, traditionally?"

"A whim." He answered.

"Riiight." She said. She looked from him to me, and narrowed her eyes. I winced, sure that I was about to be assaulted with a barrage of questions. But all she said was:

"This is so weird."

A few minutes later, we were all sitting around Kagome's table, and were about to be provided with tea. "All right." Kagome said, keeping her voice low. "Explain." She directed the question at me. "Who are you, and what is it that you really are? What do you want?"

I winced. "I don't want anything." I told her truthfully.

"Why are you here then?" She demanded. "And why are you impersonating the grandson of our benefactor?"

"I'm not impersonating him, not exactly." I answered, crossing my arms and turning my nose up. The action seemed to take her aback for a moment, as if it was familiar to her. "I am him."

"What do you mean?"

"Your Menachi Genko and Menachi Hideko are one person. Me. I got this shrine protected because it is the first place that I remember. All I'm doing here is checking up on it. I've been alive since just after you left feudal Japan, Kagome. Don't bother asking who I am and where I came from, because I don't know the answer to that any better than you do. The only think I know is that I share the name, and evidently the appearance, of your half-blood."

She looked at Sesshoumaru. "What do you have to do with all of this?"

"Nothing." He answered, looking down his nose at her. "He and I met in feudal Japan as well, and became acquaintances based on the fact that we both lived through the centuries. He's never known who he really is."

Kagome looked like she was not quite ready to deal with this right now. "Whatever." She decided. "What is the deal with the demons then? I suppose that might be a little more important at the moment."

Sesshoumaru looked toward me, wanting me to answer. He never had been a man of many words. The centuries and his role as a businessman had loosened his tongue quite a bit, but he still preferred silence over chatter. "Well, the majority of demons still surviving in this day and age are either in hiding like he is-"

"I'm not in hiding." Sesshoumaru growled.

"In disguise, whatever. It amounts to the same thing, O Lord of the Western Lands." I said mockingly. "Or, they're imprisoned in the fighting pits of the underworld. But according to what Sesshoumaru says, the latter have somehow escaped their captivity and are rampaging the world over."

"I only know that they've been released in Toyko." Sesshoumaru clarified.

"All right." Kagome said. "I'll ignore for the moment that there is absolutely no reason for you to know that, Hideko." When she used that name, Sesshoumaru gave me an amused glance. I glared back at him. Kagome presumably missed all this as she poured tea. "Now my question is, how?"

"I haven't the slightest idea." I answered. "As I said, those demons couldn't have possibly have escaped on their own. I've been to the fighting pits before, and the security on them is strenuous, for obvious reasons. Releasing them on the modern world would cause utter chaos. But the demons in the fighting pits are mostly low-level, so they're not the one's I'm worried about. It's the others."

"The others?" Sesshoumaru questioned, looking surprised. "What are you talking about?"

"You mean you didn't know?"

"I haven't spent much time there myself. Only people like you would find entertainment in that sort of thing."

"We all have our little shortcomings. I have background knowledge, so I can make a lot of money there when I so choose." I said a bit distractedly as I tried to call up all my memories of the fighting pits. Anything that might shed some light on what could have possibly happened. "Well, the underworld has other demons besides the ones in the fighting pits. And these aren't anywhere near the same class as the one you only recently dispatched, Sesshoumaru. They're upper-level, the kind with the power to disguise themselves as humans. Actually, most of them _are_ disguised as humans – only a trained eye like mine could spot the little inconsistencies that you demons sometimes miss. They're preserved somehow in this fluid – I think it's something like cryogenic freezing. I thought they were dead. If we are dealing with cytogenetic freezing technology though, they might be alive. If they were, they were probably frozen or whatever was because the leaders of the underworld were afraid of them. Do you have any idea if they were released as well?"

"No." Sesshoumaru answered.

"In that case-" I stopped in mid-sentence. The memory of the day I'd been in the vaults of the preserved dangerous demons flashed before my consciousness. And with them, a familiar face, barely distorted by the strange bluish fluid that kept her preserved, and unchanged by the many centuries since I'd last seen her. "Sesshoumaru, there's something you should know."

"Ho?" He said, looking vaguely interested for the first time. "What's that?"

"Those demons I told you about, the preserved ones – Sazura was among them."

"What!" Sesshoumaru hissed, a rare expression of utter astonishment flashing across his features. "Sazura?" He whispered.

"None other. Believe me, I thought you'd killed her too."

"Would you two care to explain _what the hell you're talking about_?" Kagome said finally after fuming silently during our conversation, sounding more than a little peeved.

"If Sazura has been released, all of Tokyo is in grave danger." Sesshoumaru mused to himself, ignoring Kagome.

"Sorry," I said to her. "Just clearing up a little old business." I turned to Sesshoumaru. "Do you think she'd be interested in the jewel?"

"Undoubtedly." He said. "Which means she might be on her way here now."

"Ahem." Kagome cleared her throat. "Do you _mind_ informing little old me just what's going on? Hideko? Sesshoumaru?"

Sesshoumaru finally looked at her, then his yellow irises slid toward me. "You really should tell her your real name." He told me, then addressed Kagome. "Sazura is an old enemy of mine. She's very dangerous, perhaps even on par with our old friend, Naraku. We had it out several centuries ago, and I was sure she was dead. In addition, they seem to have managed to overrule the protection of your shrine. In-He" he looked at me, "Claims that there is no way the demons could have escaped on their own, so, someone released them. And if someone released the fighting pit demons, they would have probably released the others he was talking about. At least, they would have if they had a particular purpose in mind. Three demons have shown up here tonight alone, so I think they did." He looked at Kagome. "Someone's found the only way to override the protection of your shrine, Kagome. Probably someone who wants the jewel, and who has been after it for a very long time."

"What's this protection you keep talking about?" Kagome asked.

"Why, your god, of course. What else?"

"My god?"

"Yes. There is a god for every shrine, and you have one as well. What else did you think was hiding the power of the jewel you wear about your neck?"

"I never thought about it. I didn't think it was very smart to question a good thing. I know we have a god, but I never gave it much thought because we don't know who it is." She narrowed her eyes at the demon lord sitting across the table. "But you know who it is, don't you?"

"Of course I do. I've known for centuries, ever since he was made the god of the shrine of the Jewel of the Four Souls."

"Well?" She said impatiently

"What?"

"Who is it? Who's my shrine's god?" She asked, exasperated.

Sesshoumaru looked at me with a sly look. I stared blankly back at him.

"Your god is the spirit of your little half-blood, Inuyasha – the part that made him a half-blood anyway."

"What?" She looked out the window at the building that was supposed to hold the spirit of the god, clutching her cup very tightly. "Inuyasha is- wait, what do you mean, the part that made him a demon? What about the other part?"

"Why, the other part is sitting right in front of you. Isn't that right, little brother?" Sesshoumaru disclosed with a theatrically ponderous tone.

Stunned silence followed the words of the demon who had just called himself my brother. "Brother-?" I began to ask, but was cut off when I became sure that something was trying to split my head in half – something from the inside. I barely noticed Kagome jumped up and ran to me when I instinctively curled up in a fetal position with my head between my hands. Even Sesshoumaru wore a rare expression of surprise at my reaction to his words.

But after that, my perception of the two beside with me dimmed and was replaced by – memories. Memories that were all at once mine and yet at the same time, another's. They came at a rate impossible to keep up with, but with this terrible pain in my head I was in no condition to appreciate them anyway. There was no relation between the pictures that flitted across my conscious mind, no connection in the snippets of conversation that I heard. I don't know how long complete chaos reigned in my head. Through it all, my head felt as though it was going to explode, as if some kind of pipe had been blocked up in my mind for an eternity and had finally burst, spilling forth memories of a life I never knew existed.

Eventually, I noticed that the storm inside my head had begun to quiet. It was far from over, but the images were slowing, and some of them were even beginning to make sense.

_"Do you really have to erase his memory?" This memory was hazy, I could not make anything out except for the voices, as if I had been somehow asleep or maybe drugged. But – that voice. I recognized it, though it had been such a very long time: Sango._

"No, but from what you've told me, he wanted to do this to meet someone in the future. At least this way he will not feel the long wait so keenly. It will help him adjust to his new body easier. Be will remember when the time I right, whether he wants to or not."

What the hell? Erase my memory? A rare violent urge threatened to consume me. Someone had dared to – I forced myself to calm down. That had happened long ago and whoever was responsible was long dead. Besides, it seemed that I had succumbed to whatever she had done to me willingly. But something else was bothering me as well. That violent rage that had almost seized me was familiar: I'd once been quite susceptible to it, but I'd trained myself to suppress the violent urges long ago and had not felt one so strongly for many years. What was suddenly so different? Why had my training abruptly failed me? Forget that, the recurrence of old habits was a very small problem compared to what had just happened to me. Where had all these memories come from? Were these the missing years of my life? What had happened to me in the past? Who was I?

Kagome was knelt next to her unconscious visitor with a worried look on her face when Sesshoumaru returned. Hideko was writhing in his unconscious state, talking in his nightmares, though the cries of pain had ended. Kagome looked up, hearing the door open. "The god has departed." Sesshoumaru announced as he walked back into the room.

"Departed?" Kagome questioned. "What do you mean, departed?"

"It's gone. Your shrine no longer has a spirit to protect it." He looked curiously at the unconscious black-haired man whose head was resting in Kagome's lap. "So he hasn't transformed back. Well, they did tell me that they didn't know what would happen when he found you."

Kagome sighed tiredly. "Sesshoumaru, someday we're going to teach you how to explain yourself. I'm getting tired of asking you to elaborate on your cryptic remarks."

He laughed then, something he hadn't done in a long time. "That idiot lying there is my little brother, even though he hasn't known it for five hundred years. It lessened the strain on our relationship. He can't remember anything before the day that witch cast a spell on him."

Hideko chose that moment to again cry out in his unconscious state. "…no." His voice was hardly more than a whisper. "You can't."

"Cast a spell?"

"I don't know the details. Even though I saved her brother's life, that demon exterminator was still wary around me." Sesshoumaru explained. "But he wished for the witch to bespell him. The same spell that made him human and halted his aging erased his memory."

"Kikyou, don't do this." Hideko – no, Inuyasha said then. "Everything will go wrong."

Kagome looked down at him, but to her companion's surprise, her face held nothing but concern as she drew a hand across the hair that had fallen into his eyes. Then she raised her eyes to look at Sesshoumaru. "Yep. That's Inuyasha all right. Now what's all this about a spell and halted aging?"

_Here was something interesting. I was sure that this particular memory was more important than the others. It had literally forced itself upon my mind's eye. It was quite insistent, so I relented and allowed it to show itself. To my surprise, it did not seem to be anything like the others. It wasn't passive, a mere recalling of events past. I was reliving events this time around, and I was lost and frightened – but I was not alone._

_I was suspended in a dark, almost liquid like substance, though I was not wet. I was not anything. I did not strictly have a body. Strange as it might seem, this experience was familiar to me. It was just like going through the Bone-Eater's Well, the link between times, to go fetch Kagome. It was the same and yet irrevocably different. The strange yet somehow breathable air that surrounded me had a terrible finality about it that could never be explained, only felt._

_"So this is what it's like to be dead." The thought was mine, and yet it was not. I had summoned no such thought, my main concern being on the strangeness of the memory, of the situation I had found myself in. I started mentally when I realized that this memory was absolutely complete, and that I was remembering even what I had been thinking during this experience._

_"You aren't dead, Inuyasha." A soft voice came from somewhere beside me. Again there was that same feeling of recognition and strangeness rolled into one. 'Kikyou.' I thought, or thought once, long ago. A priestess in the traditional white and red robes I had seen only during festivals for hundreds of years appeared before me. Her black hair was long and loose, and her face was gentle. Her form was hazy, the details nonexistent as if she were not quite real. 'This is the woman I loved, not the crude rendition of her with the body of mud and bones.' My former self thought with a twinge of emotion, but no more than a twinge. The love was past tense, even then. Two images interrupted the flow of events, one of the girl called Kikyou, obviously alive in a way that the one before me was not and smiling gently at me in a sunlit field, and the other in darkness of the same girl, yet she seemed very cold and almost cruel. _

_'What are you talking about? Of course I'm dead. I better be. I gave my life so that you could rest, Kikyou.' I snarled, though the harshness was dimmed by the sound of sadness and irrevocable loss that resonated in my voice._

_'Yes.' She said. 'You gave your life for the lost soul who tried to kill both you and her own reincarnation. The one who stole your shards of the sacred jewel that she had died to protect, the one who held herself aloof and unfamiliar to you. The one who was responsible for your death.'_

_'I love you, Kikyou.' I answered simply. It was the truth, or it had been. Yet there was something more._

_'Inuyasha, when will you understand? The red string of fate, once cut, cannot be rejoined. Our fate was changed that day fifty years ago. But, I digress. You gave your life for my lost soul, allowing me to rest and the part of –' she paused, as if searching for a word, 'Kagome's soul that I had stolen upon my resurrection to return to her. So I forgive you, for you were never guilty in the first place.' The apparition of the dead priestess who I had fallen in love with so long ago and who had been responsible for my death no less than two times moved forward and touched my face gently with her hands. 'Live Inuyasha.' She intoned and my heart wrenched. She was going to ruin everything._

_'…no. You can't-" I began but she hushed me._

_'Don't worry, Inuyasha."_

_'No, you don't understand.' I told her. "Kikyou, don't do this. Everything will go wrong."_

_"No, it won't. Trust me, Inuyasha, everything will turn out better this way in the end.' Her soft brown eyes dilated in concentration. 'Live, Inuyasha, return to the life that should never have been taken from you, were it not for your generous heart.'_

_I felt the strange reality around me shudder, and Kikyou's form became more blurred than even before. 'No!' I tried to yell at her, though she and the world around me were fading fast. 'This is all wrong, this is not how it was supposed to happen!' Then a white light surrounded me and the dream ended._

"Damn it!" I shot up into a sitting position. "God damn it." I whispered, looking at my hands. Then I realized that I was not alone, and looking up I saw that both Kagome and Sesshoumaru were staring at me with raised eyebrows. Looking at Sesshoumaru I felt for the first time more than a cursory wariness, but something very different, something like fear and even hate. I immediately pushed both emotions back, as those two emotions had never done anything useful for me in the past. Besides, I had known Sesshoumaru for centuries, and if he'd wanted to get rid of me he could have done so long ago without even breaking a sweat.

"I see your foul mouth has returned." He said calmly in his resonate voice, sipping his tea, seemingly unconcerned. "Now the question is why did not your half-blood form come with it? Weak as it is, it has it's uses. You stole it from the shrine where it's been resting for centuries, and yet you remain human. If it were me, I would be in a hurry to escape that weak form, even if I had to take the body of a half-blood to do it." He paused in consideration of this statement, and upon further deliberation chose to retract it. "Well, perhaps." He looked moderately disturbed at the idea of becoming a half-blooded demon.

"What are you talking about?" I snapped. "Unlike Your Esteemed Royal Highness, I _am_ a human." Then I realized that somehow those words no longer rang true for me. I was not a human, was I? I looked down at myself and found that I was somewhat surprised to see that I looked the same as I always had. I looked back up at him. "What the hell did you do to me, Sesshoumaru?"

"I did nothing. You did it to yourself, long, long ago. When you went to hell with that priestess after Naraku was defeated, she did something unexpected. She apparently forgave you and allowed you to return to the living world. Yet, you were upset about your continued existence for whatever reason, and had a priestess turn you human, cause you to cease aging, and lose your half-demon form. At least that's what I was told. As you probably recall now, we were not the best of friends But I happened by one day, and the boy – Kohaku was it? – told me what had come to pass. The price was your demon blood. I had assumed you would regain it when the spell was broken, but evidently not. What is more puzzling is that despite all the time you've spent far away from Japan, you still managed to find this _human_ again, during her short life span – only three years after you were first parted. Why would you want to find her? She is only a human."

Kagome pursed her lips at the tone of his voice when he said the word 'human.' "I don't know Sesshoumaru," She said pointedly, "I seem to remember a little human girl who used to travel with you in the past. Wasn't it she who convinced you to use the healing power of Tensaiga to heal Kohaku?"

Sesshoumaru's eyes changed briefly. He'd shown more emotion in the last couple hours than I'd ever seen him display in the entire time of our acquaintance, even with the addition of my new memories. So digging up the past had the same effect on the great Sesshoumaru that it had on almost everyone else in this world. For some reason that was comforting. He was capable of emotions, something that had not been altogether obvious before. But what was this about a human girl? Sesshoumaru had shared his views on humans many times with me over the years. I had always wondered why I seemed to be exempt from his contempt. Now I knew. I was his little brother, a dirty half-breed and a mistake of his father in his eyes, but his little brother all the same. Though from what I had seen of my memories, we had not really had what might be called 'brotherly love'.

"We aren't talking about Rin right now." He said in a tone that I had never heard before. Was there just a tiny hint of sadness in it?

"Whatever." I said, letting a tiny smile slip. He glared at me. I realized through these new memories I had only recently acquired that our relationship had changed a great deal from the way it had been. We were able to be in the same room without the tension being thick enough to cut with a spoon. That, more than anything else that I had recently discovered, was a relief. We could now be more than civil. Was it possible that it had been more than a desire to preserve the spell that had been cast upon me that had caused him to keep the truth about our relationship from me for all these years?

"Well that was fun." Kagome sighed. "I find out that there are all kinds of demons roaming around Tokyo and that Kikyou did somehow retain a forgiving heart through all that. What a surprise." Kagome's voice was even, it held no trace of jealousy or anger, only thoughtfulness and a bit of surprise.

"I think she returned to herself." I told her.

"What?"

"When she forgave me, she was again a spirit, and she was more like the girl she had been when she was alive than the girl that you met, the resurrected one with the cold heart. I suppose my sacrifice surprised her, and since, as she put it, 'I was never guilty in the first place,' she 'forgave' me and let me return to life."

"Then what happened?" She asked. I noticed a quick flicker of emotion in her eyes, though it quickly disappeared. But there was no question in my mind that what she had asked me was very important to her for one reason or another.

"To tell the truth, I haven't the slightest idea." I answered. She took a quick breath and leaned back a little, looking hurt. "I'm sorry, but everything up here," I indicated my head, "Is extremely confused just now. I haven't seen more than bits and pieces of this new past I've discovered – and very incomplete bits and pieces at that. The memory of Kikyou forgiving me sort of intruded itself upon me, which is why I knew the details about it – but as for the rest, I can't make any sense of it right now."

"I think what you should really consider doing is finding some way to return to the body in which you were born." Sesshoumaru cut in.

"Why is that so important to you?" Kagome asked him. "You always hated the fact that he was a half-blood, in fact you hated him in general before. What's changed?"

Sesshoumaru raised an eyebrow. "I have, of course. I thought you'd realized that quite some time ago, when I first showed up here and offered to help you out every now and then. Do you think the Sesshoumaru that came after the Tetsusaiga all those years ago would have used his sword to save the life of your friend's brother? Especially in light of the fact that he was not only human, but a demon exterminator – not that the boy would have been any kind of threat to me, but there _are_ general principles to be considered."

Kagome considered this. "Actually, under different circumstances, I would have probably keeled over in shock when you did that, but I was a bit distracted at the time. But then, you'd already been changing. It was first evident when you spared Kohaku's life before when Naraku tried to make him kill the little girl."

Sesshoumaru looked affronted. "I only did that because killing him would have been pointless. He wasn't even smart enough to be afraid."

"Sesshoumaru, he was being _controlled_. Of course he wouldn't have shown any fear." She rolled her eyes and sighed. Yes, if Kagome would dare to treat him so familiarly, Sesshoumaru had changed. Their relationship was interesting, that of comrades. The other Inuyasha, the one of my memories, was paralyzed with shock at their demeanor. Besides, before I'd regained my memories, I had always seen Sesshoumaru as a sort of sometime friend.

"You still haven't shared the reason for your sudden yearning to see your dirty half-blood brother again." I pointed out.

"In light of the recent crisis that has arisen here in Tokyo – which is the myriad of demons now running amok in the city with this shrine as their destination, in case the two of you forgot already – it would be nice if we had some more firepower. Ineffective you might have been, but you did manage to stay alive up until that moment of apparent insanity in which you willingly leapt into hell, so you must be able to do _something _with it."

He shook his head in disgust. "Don't worry, little brother, I'll try to be around as much as possible in case someone with actual fighting ability attacks the shrine. We wouldn't want to have to expose your weaknesses, would we? I suppose that if worse comes to worse, we could stick you up on a metaphorical pedestal, threaten all the demons with your unending power, and I could do the actual dirty work behind the scenes, but that seems just a little unnecessarily elaborate to me." Kagome laughed at this.

"I resent the insinuation that I have no fighting talent." I growled at him. He laughed at me.

"Insinuation? I didn't insinuate anything. I said it outright. But who knows, maybe the no fighting talent stage of your life is now past tense. I seem to remember you once mentioning getting some kind of instruction in the fighting arts in order to guarantee your further existence as a weak human. Perhaps you might now be somewhat effectual. But don't worry, I'll still be here in case you get into trouble, little brother."

"If you weren't infinitely stronger and faster than me, I would wipe that smirk off your face." I told him in a severely irritated tone. "But as is, I'll just grin and bear it." I glared at his smirk. "Remember how I once said I wished I had a family? I didn't mean it."

"You injure my heart." Sesshoumaru replied sarcastically.

"Anyway, I won't need your help." I told him.

"Ho? Is that so?" He looked amused and extremely doubtful.

"Well, maybe." I said, rethinking my words. "At least until I figure out how the hell to regain my damn body."

"Do you remember what you looked like?" Kagome asked me.

"Only what you told me." I answered, not seeing what she was getting at.

"Why don't you try picturing that in your mind. It seems to me that something like that would probably be your best bet. Sesshoumaru says that the spirit is gone from the god's shrine, and the only reasonable explanation is that it returned to your body. All you have to do is draw it out."

"It's worth a try." I closed my eyes and brought up an image of myself in my mind. Then I added the traits that Kagome had described to me only last night. Last night – it seemed so very long ago now, but it had only been the night before when I had slunk like the thief that I had on occasion been into the shrine in the darkness of the First Day? "Half-Demon." I whispered under my breath on a hunch, and almost immediately upon saying this word I felt a tingling sensation and Kagome gasped.

"I am so smart." She said lightly, but there was a catch in her voice, and paused before she continued. "All he's missing is his red clothes."

I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw were my hands, which were now equipped with some very impressive claws. "Oh, yeah." I said, cracking my knuckles. "Just wait until the next time someone offends me. _Sankontetsu_! The cops will be totally baffled." I cackled evilly, swiping experimentally with my right hand.

"They're just claws." Sesshoumaru said in an infuriatingly condescending tone, as if he were talking to a child. "Mine are much better. They're poisonous. Yours can just cut things. Sometimes."

"Bite me, brother." I told him, only vaguely aware that Kagome was staring at me. "I still have my red clothes, but I don't wear them about. That fashion went out a long time ago." I looked at Sesshoumaru. "Though that news evidently hasn't reached him yet."

"These clothes are more comfortable than the new fashions. If I know Tokyo, the only people who saw me this evening besides you were drunk." Sesshoumaru answered. "If the Lord of the Western Lands wishes to dress in his traditional robes, then he shall."

"I've been wondering." I said to him. "You aren't really still the Lord of the Western Lands, are you? Or is that just a title you childishly held on to, like your attachment to the fashions of the Warring States Period?"

He glared at me. Somehow, that glare didn't frighten me as it once would have. "I still retain father's title." He told me somewhat coldly. "And it has all the meaning it once did. I'm still the Lord of the Western lands. The _humans_ of this country think that it's a meaningless hereditary title that's been passed down. I had to relinquish some of my lands during the revolution, but I bought them back. Why?"

I looked at him appraisingly. "Wanna share with little brother?" I gave him my most winning smile.

"Not likely. You were a victim of birth order, the younger son of a Lord. Deal with it. Besides, you have your own empire, Inuyasha." He pointed out.

Being called by that name was still strange. Of course, it had always been my name, but for a long time, almost since the death of Miroku and Sango, there had been almost no one who knew my true name. Sesshoumaru and I hadn't exactly been best friends, and he was the only person across the ages who knew who I really was. We had only seen each other every few decades or so. I realized now that I was going to have to get used to it.

"Maybe so," I allowed, "But I'm always looking to expand. You know how it is. Business is business." I paused, deep in thought for a moment. "Now, back to the problem at hand. How exactly did you find out that the demons escaped?"

"Don't be an idiot." Sesshoumaru said in a biting tone. I wondered what had caused the sudden change in demeanor. Some kind of mood swing, it appeared. Or maybe he thought that I was just asking stupid questions. I did actually have a point. An idea had just occurred to me. "When they started attacking the shrine in unheard of numbers, I made an educated guess."

"So no one told you?" I asked. "You didn't go down there, or anything?"

He narrowed his eyes at me. "What are you getting at, Inuyasha?"

I sighed. "Just answer the question, and I'll explain myself."

"No. I recognized the variety as the demons bred and raised in the pits, and drew the obvious conclusion."

"So, maybe I should go down to the pits and pose some innocent questions tomorrow night." I suggested. "I could get some valuable information. At the very least I could find out if Sazura and the other frozen demons have been released." I looked at Kagome. "Maybe I should bring along a beautiful woman."

She started and blushed. I did not really think she had been following the conversation. "What are you talking about, Inuyasha?"

"For the benefit of those depraved lunatics down in the pits, the ones who run the underworld, the black market.." I told her, shaking my head. She blinked blankly at me.

"What are you babbling about?" Sesshoumaru asked me.

I ignored him. "I hate to have to subject you to the sight of that particular human condition like this, but I could use your help." I said to her. "It would be easier if you came along, and were my date, in a manner of speaking. Women help loosen tongues around there, especially women that aren't theirs yet. If we play it right, they won't even realize what they're saying."

"Aren't you exaggerating, Inuyasha?" My brother asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Well, maybe a little." He continued to stare at me in that unnerving way of his. "Ok, maybe a lot, but still."

Kagome narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes. "You want me to seduce them?" She looked disgusted and her hand twitched, as if itching to slap me. "Sorry, Inuyasha, but I remain a virgin, and I'm not losing it to some lord of the underworld, no matter how much we might learn from it."

"That isn't what I was suggesting, Kagome!" I protested. "Nothing of the sort. Besides, if you're going to pose as my mistress, the 'Lord of the Underworld' in question would have to be incredibly stupid to try to go after you. I may not be as well known as Sesshoumaru here, who they do know the truth about, by the way, and I may not be a certified crime lord, but I do have a reputation to maintain."

"A reputation?" She questioned, looking at Sesshoumaru, who returned her glance impassively.

"No there is quite sure what I am, but they know what happens if they touch anything of mine. If they did, I'd have to give them a proper execution involving the disemboweling technique they used to use in the Tower of London. After I ripped his guts out, I would set fire to the remains, all while he was still alive. According to what I've lead them to believe, that's sort of the course I would take against anyone who disrespected me in that manner."

"You have such a way with women." Sesshoumaru told me in disgust.

Kagome looked like she was going to lose control of her digestive system. "Inuyasha?"

"I've never actually done anything that drastic," I reassured her quickly, "but I've carefully cultivated a reputation that says otherwise. They know the truth about Sesshoumaru, and they know the truth about me, at least that I'm a little older than the normal human, and I've always been careful to keep the mystery about whether or not I'm a demon alive. I've sort of led them to believe that I've got a somewhat barbaric mindset buried underneath the businessman exterior. Anyway, all you would have to do is turn up the charm, smile a lot and use the attributes that you were blessed with. We'd have to get you some new clothes though. How about it Kagome? Willing to play the temptress for a good cause?"

She looked doubtful, but there was something buried behind her eyes, something painful. She nodded slowly.

"Is all of this really necessary?" Sesshoumaru asked tiredly.

I grinned, rubbing my hands together. "It's entirely possible that they'll tell me what I want to know without help. It depends entirely on how much they're actually trying to hush things up. But I don't want to take any chances. We need the information, and this is the best way I know of to get it in this situation."

"This is the best you can do?" My brother demanded. Kagome was watching me distantly, appraisingly, as if trying to decide if I was really what I seemed to be in her eyes. I really did not know whether or not I was. "Well," I answered, "they don't always talk a lot when they're scared, but they will sometimes talk a lot to please a woman, particularly because they don't care if a woman hears what they're talking about."

I turned to Kagome, whose eyes widened. "Actually, what I really need you for is to keep up appearances. Men looking for a fight don't customarily bring their girls around, and it's normal to bring a date to the fights, for some reason. Besides, if I went down there and started beating people up, they might wonder why I have a sudden interest in the demons of Tokyo. We wouldn't want anyone to get too curious, after all."


	5. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

"I can't shop here!" Kagome hissed to me when she realized just where I was trying to lead her.

"Why not?"

"Do you know how much this place costs? They charge you to breathe their air!" She said, pulling her arm from where it had been linked with mine and stopping, putting her hands on her hips. I stopped as well and cocked my head at her, pointedly ignoring the people who were staring at us as we stood in the middle of the sidewalk. We were downtown, I was in my human form, of course, and I was trying to take her shopping in preparation for our little escapade tonight. But for some reason she seemed to be allergic to Chanel.

"They do not." I disagreed. "I have an account here. I shop here all the time."

She raised an eyebrow. "You shop here, Inuyasha?"

I put up a hand. "None of that. My name is Hideko, remember? That's what they know me as, and we aren't going to confuse them, Kagome. That would be bad. Rich people don't handle confusion very well."

"You're rich." She said pointedly.

"I'm a special case." I stepped close to her and dropped my voice. "Not many rich boys spent 50 years pinned to a tree by a sacred arrow." I pointed out. "Now are you going to come quietly, or am I going to have to knock you out, sling you over my shoulder, make the attendants inside try clothes on your unconscious body until the police arrive and Menachi Hideko gets a police record?"

She stared at me. "How barbaric of you. What kind of clothes are we talking about here?"

"I don't know yet, because you won't go in the store. Something fancy, because people dress up for fights. No cute. We definitely don't want cute. Around here, it'll make you look like a child.

"You don't like cute things, Inuyasha?"

"No for this I don't. But I won't know until we go inside." I took her arm. "Come on. I'll buy you some ice cream if you do."

"Ice cream?" She objected, but allowed me to lead her through the doors of the store.

"Cake. Is cake better? Or we could just go down the street to Louis Vuitton and get you a new bag. It's really all the same to me."

As I had expected, we were set upon by a store employee as soon as we had crossed the threshold of the elaborate glass doors. To my chagrin, it was a woman. I had sort of been hoping otherwise. Women have ways to make their thoughts known in ways that were untraceable, and I didn't want this one upsetting Kagome by sending her vibes of disapproval because of the sort of thing I was planning on picking out for her. Japanese people really were so modest, and Kagome was more than most, though from what I remembered, she never seemed to have trouble with short skirts.

"Welcome to Chanel, my name is Kaeko, how can I be of service?" She asked sweetly. Kagome pursed her lips together.

"We're looking for woman's evening wear." I told her.

Thankfully the woman chose to postpone her further questions until she took us to the object of our desire. It gave me a chance to think of ways to get rid of her. She bowed and took off to the right, indicating us to follow her.

When we reached the department where I was going to find something that would probably thoroughly embarrass Kagome, the woman began to spring her questions on me, obviously deciding that I was the one with the money. How was it that every employee of every place for the rich and powerful that I had ever been was able to correctly discern who had the money without any actual evidence? It might have been one of the great questions of my life if I hadn't had more important things to worry about. Maybe it was just their job.

"What sort of dress are you looking for?" She outwardly directed the question to both of us, but she was really talking to me. "Something-"

"I don't think she's really sure at the moment." I cut her off. I had decided to drop the manners and play the part of the spoiled tycoon. "We'll call you when we need your assistance." The woman left in a huff and Kagome started breathing audibly again.

"Sorry about that. I forgot how they spring themselves on you when you walk in the door." I apologized in a low voice.

"At least she went away." Kagome answered, looking around. "What type of dress are you looking for Inu- Hideko?"

"That's right. Be careful what you say. She's hovering somewhere, I promise." I took a look around and thought for a moment.

"I hope you know that I'm not wearing anything like that." She said firmly, pointing to a little black dress that was more absent than present.

"You're going to be my mistress, not a prostitute I picked up on my way to the pits. We're going for at least a cursory relationship here – an ongoing one, driven chiefly lust but more than a one-night stand. So we're looking for something that says seductress, not hooker."

Kagome sighed. "You've thought about this, haven't you? Well, I guess 'seductress' is better than 'hooker.' There's got to be a difference. So what-"

"Like that one, but not that one." I said, pointing to a white dress that would cover her, but not to the point where it could ever be considered modest. "You'd want something darker."

Kagome looked doubtful. "I suppose I could wear something like that, as long as I never saw any of the people who saw me in it again."

"I'm going to see you in it." I pointed out.

Her eyes flicked to mine and she blushed. "You're different." She said, then hurried on, "What color?"

I threw up my free hand. "Why are you asking me? I'm a man, and I'm not one of those guys who are what might be considered very fashion conscious. I have to have all my suits put together by a designer because I can't put colors together on my own."

She laughed. "I only asked because you seemed to have this whole dress thing figured out. Lets see…seductress, huh? Look for something in black or red – maybe dark green - that fits your purposes, and I'll tell you whether or not I will allow any being, demon, human, or you, to see me alive in it."

"All right," I said, laughing. I glanced behind me and caught sight of our stalker, the lovely Miss Kaeko. I caught her eye and held it, making sure she got the message. She went away, or at least out of sight. I turned back and put my full attention to the task at hand.

It was Kagome, to my surprise, who found our ultimate choice. She dragged me over to it, stared at it for a while, and then asked if it was acceptable to me. It was form-fitting halter in a dramatic midnight blue, with silver trip about the bust. It felt lightly to the ground.

"Try it on. We'll see if it works." I raised my hand, and as if by magic, the ever present Miss Kaeko appeared by my side.

"Would you like a dressing room, Sir?" She asked me.

"Yes." I raised an eyebrow. "But not for me." We followed the woman to the dressing rooms, where I pushed Kagome in with the dress. She came out a couple minutes later.

I wasn't sure exactly how to express how good it looked on her. "That works." I said finally.

"Is that all you have to say?" She sounded disappointed.

"At the moment, yes." I answered. "Give me a few hours, and I might be able to come up with an appropriate compliment. I can't make any promises, though."

"This dress is amazing." She twirled in front of the mirror. "The fabric is so soft."

"The fabric is not what I was thinking of." I managed.

She shut the door in my face and I raised my hand for the lovely Miss Kaeko. "The dress will do. Put it under the account of Menachi Hideko. We'll need some shoes too."

"Yes Sir." She said, bowing quickly and hurrying off.

"Is it fun to make them run around like that?" Kagome asked me.

"You can't imagine. But I'll teach you the thrill of bossing around stuck up people like her, don't worry. When she gets back, and it better be soon, we'll go out to lunch, then report back to my dear brother."

She looked at me shyly, slipping her hand into mine. "Hideko."

"Yes?" I glanced at her, trying to disguise my surprise at the gesture.

"Will you buy me a Hermes scarf?" She asked. I should have known. "I've always wanted one. They're so pretty."

"I'll buy you whatever you want, Kagome. Just say the word."

"Do you really think this is going to work?" Sesshoumaru asked me as we waited for Kagome. Her family had been surprisingly overjoyed to know that I had returned, and even her grandfather did not seem to be put out by the fact that I had lied to them all. They apparently already knew Sesshoumaru.

I was fairly sure that Kagome's mother had some serious issues. I had actually told her outright what I planned to do with her daughter tonight, at least so far as the type of place we would be going, and she had replied that she was sure that Kagome would be safe with me. But, I reflected, if the woman had been willing to let her daughter trot off to the Warring States Period with a half-demon all those times, knowing what was involved, it was not too outrageous for her to let me take her daughter into the pits of the underworld. But I had never met a woman like her mother before, and I was fairly sure I would not again.

"I really don't know. But I don't see that they would have any reason to lie to me. If I get there to watch the fights and there's no demons to bet on, it would only be natural to ask questions, wouldn't it? Odds are that I won't have to use my trump card at all."

"Is that all I am? Your trump card?" Kagome asked from the doorway, finally ready. She had put on the dress, which fit her like a glove. Despite having been given hours, I still had not found a proper way to express what the sight of her in that dress did to me, and I had made my way as a poet from time to time in the past. Surprisingly, her hair was up in one of those French twists, which was rare, but then, she would have looked more innocent and childlike if she had left it down. She had even put on some makeup, dark, dramatic make-up, including red lipstick, which one did not see much in Japan. She had certainly grasped the sort of look I had in mind for my plan.

"A trump card, and yet so much more. You stun me to the point where I lose command of my native language. 'It is the east, and Kagome is the sun.'" I said dramatically in English. She stared at me.

"You spent too much time in the British Court." Sesshoumaru told me. "He was quoting Shakespeare. He knew the man."

"Who could claim to know such a great poet?" I asked dramatically. "I only met him once or twice. I liked the British Court, Sesshoumaru. You really should have given it a chance. Queen Elizabeth was a nice lady, and so was King James, though he gets such a bad rap in history. People just could handle homosexuality back then – they can't even deal with it now, in this so-called 'enlightened age'. But you were still in your 'I can't use my vocal cords' stage then, weren't you? That kind of made people nervous, all that raw power and silence was intimidating."

"I'm aware of that. Such was the point." He told me, then turned to my lovely companion for the night's escapade. "Now you know where he gets that dramatic streak. It's the very thing that undoubtedly caused his elaborate plan for this evening. He lived in the British Court for a long time, and embraced their theatre."

"I was a main sponsor for the Globe." I admitted. "But you forgot the French Court. I spent some time there as well, about the same time Benjamin Franklin was there. Brilliant man."

"Yet you still can't think of a suitable compliment for your 'trump card'?" My brother asked in a mocking voice.

"Well, not in Japanese." I conceded. "I could compliment her easily in French. But that would be pointless. She might have understood the English, but French would be a lost cause."

"You're a lost cause." He told me.

"Are you sure you don't want to come along?" I asked him, looking at Kagome, and offering my arm. "Do you really want to miss this chance to see the master at work?"

"I'll have to decline." He answered in a monotone. "With all these demons running around Tokyo, someone has to protect the shrine." He pointed out, then looked thoughtful. "In fact, I'm surprised there hasn't been a general outcry. The people of big cities might not be very concerned with anyone but themselves, but you'd think they would notice if a demon was running down the street."

"Good point." I answered. "Maybe there's someone controlling them. The demons, not the people, I mean." I looked up at the clock. "Whatever, we'll talk about this later. We have to leave. I want to allow plenty of time for Kagome and me to work our magic on the unsuspecting bad guys. later, big brother." Kagome and I walked out the door and into the warm night outside.

I had gone all out on preparing for our grand fake-out. I had even gone so far as to hire a limousine to take us to our destination, and it waited outside the shrine. Kagome nearly fell off her stilettos when she saw it.

"Remember," I murmured in her ear, "We're rich people. You're my high-maintenance mistress, you're accustomed to the finer things in life, and you will settle for nothing less."

"I am?" Kagome looked pained. "Do I have to act like an idiot?"

I had a feeling that my confusion was showing on my face. Kagome appeared to have a set impression of what a woman like the one she was playing the part of tonight was like, and that impression was all wrong. "What are you talking about? Why would you act like a idiot? You just act normal. Well, maybe spoiled and petulant. Just follow my lead."

The pits were located across Tokyo, in one of the bad parts of town, which was to be expected. It had been quite some time since I had paid a visit there, the last time had been twelve years ago, during the same visit to Tokyo in which I had first seen Kagome, in this time period. But even so, we should be able to get in without a hitch, unless things had changed during that expanse of time.

However, I was a bit worried, mostly because I was not exactly feeling like myself. It was because of the return of those memories that I had recently gotten back. I was elated beyond anything that words could express to have her with me again, but I was afraid. I loved her, but Kagome had always been the scariest person I had ever met when she was angry, and I knew she had to be at least a little mad at what I had done to her so long ago. Yet, that did not seem to be the case. She took me reappearance in stride, almost as if she had expected it. But I knew she had not. It was also strange that she'd taken my reappearance in stride, almost as if she had expected it.

But I knew that she hadn't expected this at all. She had spoken of me, of Inuyasha, as part of the distant past, back when we had both thought be to be Hideko. I still did not think either of us had imagined what had really happened before Sesshoumaru had set off my transformation. The route that fate had taken was just too bizarre. So that could only mean that the calm exterior was only a front she put up to hide her real feelings. How in the world had she learned to hide what she was thinking so well? She'd never been able to do it back in Feudal Japan. I did not want to think about the other possibility, that the pain she had spoken of during her story was different than I imagined, that the three years had seen her get over me, that she did not love me anymore.

She was making me nervous, and I could not afford to be distracted just now. Either way, she was making me nervous. But that was not the only problem. I did not know who I was anymore, how to amalgamate the two halves of myself into one being. I was part ancient, human, inexplicably and eternally young Inuyasha, originally from Japan, cultured from a century and a half in the British and French courts, who had obscure connections to the underworld, not to mention the Mafia and syndicates that controlled it. Yet at the same time, I was also part the 15th century Inuyasha, half-blooded son of a Great Demon, the Lord of the Western Lands, with a murderous half-brother, and who had spent fifty years pinned to a tree by the only person he had ever loved, freed by her reincarnation whom he also loved, and killed once again, this time by conscious choice. I was both at once, and yet neither, and that frightened me. Violent, irrational urges I had spent years training into submission were ruling me again, and I did not know what I would do next. Tonight might be a delicate operation; I would need all my wits about me, and I really did not need the 15th century version of myself getting in the way.

It was entirely possible that everything would go easily, but I had picked up the useful habit long ago to always be ready for eventualities. It was not realistic to assume that the hardened underground men were going to go all to pieces at the sight of Kagome, but having her around might help loosen their tongues a little. I had perhaps gone a bit overboard in my explanation of why I wanted her to come along, but I had felt that the exaggeration would be useful in getting her to join me. It certainly was true that when we got there and there were no demons to bet on that it would only be natural to ask questions. If I could get Kagome to ask the initial questions, and lead them to believe that her questions had no malice behind them and that she was just asking merely out of curiosity, then I might be able to get a little more information. Everything should go off without a hitch, but I had that nasty feeling that things weren't going to go according to plan. Worse, I was pretty much unarmed. I might be able to use the Tetsusaiga now that I was able to transform, but it was a little strange even for someone like me to run around modern-day Tokyo with a sword, especially one in the state of Tetsusaiga when it wasn't transformed.

But if I was antsy, I could tell that Kagome was many times worse. At least I was fairly familiar with where we were going, and with the sort of people that would be there. Kagome, my little golden girl, was not the sort that would ever pop up in a place like we were going. I had not wanted to expose her to these sort of conditions, but I had not had a choice – I needed her to be my safety net. It was not just that she might be able to get them to talk, I needed her powers as a priestess. She might be able to sense things that I could not. I had not mentioned this to her, because I had been sure that she would deny them. She seemed to have that same inferiority complex about her powers that she had had back then, but I knew that she had inherited Kikyou's powers, and was well able to use them by now.

Such were the thoughts that filled my consciousness until Kagome tapped me on the shoulder, and I realized that the driver had reached the destination I had given him. I had nit told him to take us just outside the building itself, so we'd have to walk a couple blocks. I instructed the driver to be on call to return, and we set off.

"Inuyasha, are you sure about this?" Kagome asked me as we went down the street. Then she paused, and slowed her pace for a moment. "Should I be calling you that, or Hideko?"

"Inuyasha. They know who I am." I told her. "Are you ready? We have quite the adventure ahead of us. This is either going to be very boring, or very entertaining. I'd almost rather it to be the former, personally. Boring means safe, or as safe as one can be in the pits." I reached inside my coat to touch one of my guns for reassurance. Sesshoumaru had gotten them for me. They were hard to come by in Japan, but he had the necessary contacts. The first was a regular .45, but the second was loaded with bullets especially made for demons. I wanted to be prepared, and this was the only way I knew how. Cultured I may be, but I had never quite lost fact of the slightly barbaric notion that one should always have something to fall back on in case things get rough.

"Where exactly is this place?" Kagome asked, looking around at the dark buildings surrounding us and moving closer to me. I put my arm around her, and clenched the other more tightly around the gun in my pocket. "It's a little ahead. It looks ordinary on the outside, but that's why they picked it. It's a four-story building, at least on the outside. The topmost floor is a club, where music throbs from dusk until morning, all year, every night. The second floor from the top is for prostitutes." She made a face. "The third floor down is the offices, where the deals go down, and sometimes where they hide those being sought out by the cops. The first floor is where the humans fight, boxing and such. But there's more than that."

"We're going further down, into the underground floors. Even I haven't seen all of them. The fighting pits are right underneath the building, held in a huge underground arena. Below that is the farthest I've ever been, and it's where they keep the frozen demons that I told you about. I think there is more below it, but I've never seen it for myself."

Kagome looked at me with a disapproving expression on her face. "Inuyasha, how is it that you are so closely affiliated with that sort of thing?"

I turned away from her. I'd been afraid she was going to ask that. "Because, I lead a dark life, Kagome. I always have, you should know that. It was the only way to survive. Long ago, I used to fight in these pits, though they were not the same one we have now. People like it when a human gets in the ring with a demon, and I made money that way, and the name Inuyasha was famous. I didn't like living that way, so I left Japan. I lived in Asia for a long time, and Europe only when I already had money, in the courts of Europe. They were much more fun than life in Japan, because no one knew who I was. I don't have to be affiliated with crime anymore, but somehow, I always seem to come back here. It even happens to Sesshoumaru. As much as he might deny it, he's victim to the same pull that I am, the pull to the dark side. We were both part of it long ago, and we've never been able to be completely rid of it."

Kagome stared at me with wide eyes, and I turned away. I had not meant to say so much. I did not want to hear her empty words of comfort, words that she would say while her heart shied away from me in terror and disgust. This was the first time I had ever realized how deep that pull was, the first time I'd put the darkness in my soul into words, and it forced me to come to grips with how horrible it was.

She would have been happier if I had never found her again. I was not good enough for her, and my very presence defiled her, just as it had defiled Kikyou. If our paths had not crossed again, she could have believed me to be the protective boy she had known, and she could be safe. I had been responsible for Kikyou's demise, in a round-about way. If not for the love she felt for me, she would have never been vulnerable, and Naraku would never have been able to attack her and kill her. If it had not been for my own selfishness, the jewel would have been eventually purified by Kikyou, and Kagome would have never been dragged into the mess I had created.

But Kagome had stopped beside me, and I was forced to look at her. She stepped in front of me, her small face looking intently into my own for several moments before she slipped her arms around my neck and kissed me.

I was as shocked as I had been when the resurrected Kikyou had kissed me. But of course, Kagome was warm where Kikyou had been cold, because she was alive, and vibrant. She pulled away from me finally, and set one hand against my cheek as I stared at her.

"I love you Inuyasha." If I had thought my surprise was at its limit, I was wrong. Before I had the chance to come up with a response, she took my arm again, all business. "Come on, lets go."

I glanced up, seeing our destination loom before us. "We're here." I announced gruffly.

Kagome followed me with some effort as I quickened my pace in a completely pointless endeavor to somehow escape the situation I had found myself in. What had just happened? Could I have possibly imagined it? Why would I want to believe I had imagined it? I drew a deep, calming breath and slowed my pace as we neared the door. If I was going to behave normally again, this was the time to do it. I tightened my arm around her waist, where it had somehow migrated when I was distracted, and descended down the narrow stairs that led to the underworld's headquarters. I was carefully avoiding her eyes, which had watched me carefully ever since my little speech.

I took a moment to consider just what I had become. I was seriously starting to second guess my decision to bring her along. Once I would have never taken Kagome into danger, unless it was absolutely necessary, and now I was bringing her just to gain a slight edge. Long ago, I had been able to protect her when danger struck, but I was not so sure if I still possessed that power. I had regained the ability to transform into my half-blood self, but I did not have my sword. I had the distinct feeling that something very unpleasant awaited us inside. However, it was a bit too late to turn back now.

I was not surprised when two goons appeared as if out of nowhere to block our progress into the inner chambers. For all I knew, they probably _had_ appeared out of nowhere, since the underworld had always liked having those of not-so-human origin to guard their domains. But at the moment, I was not as concerned with the guards as much as I was concerned with how I was going to get past them. It was not that I thought that I would not be able to, but I sort of wanted to keep my presence here on the download. I did not particularly want to broadcast my name and presence to everyone present. I stopped in front of them. "Let us pass." I ordered, crossing my arms and narrowing my eyes.

"Show your identification." One of them stated woodenly. I raised an eyebrow. This was new.

"What, do you want my drivers license?" I asked with a sharp bark of laughter. "Don't be ridiculous. It doesn't have my real name on it." I looked them over carefully. "Things have changed since I was last here, ten years ago."

"Wait here." One of them ordered and went inside. He returned almost immediately with a young man who looked to be of either American or European origin. He was carrying a rather thick binder. I looked at it curiously, drawing Kagome closer to her.

"Good evening." He said to me, piling on the honorifics. "I was told that there is seemingly a problem with your identification."

"Yes. I don't have any." I said bluntly.

"Are you of non-human origin?"

"Not exactly." I answered.

"How long has it been since your last visit?"

"Ten years, like I said."

"I have a hard time believing that your parent's brought you here as a child."

"Of course not." I snapped. I could remember my mother now, and the very thought of her being in a place like this, much less with me in tow, offended me for some reason.

"Your name, sir?"

"Inuyasha." I answered. I was beginning to get impatient with him.

I paused, as if the name was somehow familiar, then began flipping through the binder he had in his hands with a frown. "Just as I suspected." I muttered to himself. "All right boys, you can let him through."

The two thugs, whom I had begun to consider the possibility of being of clay-soldier origin, perhaps from the passed down arts of Urasue, moved out of the way. The caucasian man opened the door for us. Inside, one might expect it to be dark and smoky, but that wasn't the way they did things around here. The lower seats of the pits were like that, but the upper parts where we would remain, and the receiving hall, were bright and well lit. Kagome looked surprised.

"I'm sorry about that, Mr. Inuyasha, but we've had a lot of trouble with the Feds lately. Someone tipped them off to some of the other headquarters, and we still aren't sure if they know where this place is." He peered curiously at me in the better lighting of the room we were now in. "Are you really The Ageless One?"

"Yes." I answered, trying very much to give him a stare to rival that of Sesshoumaru's. I hadn't heard that particular title before – it must have been in his binder – but I thought it described me rather well. He seemed to have heard of me previously, however. I hadn't been aware I was all that notorious.

"What can we do for you today, Mr. Inuyasha?"

"Well, we actually came to see the fights – are they on tonight?" Both Kagome and I watched his reaction carefully.

"Of course they are." He answered, giving me a strange look. "They're on every night. I assume you will be seated in the fishbowl?" He asked, referring to the glass room where the richest of the Fighting Pits partons sat. I watched his reaction carefully before answering. It had been very slight, but it had been there. A slight pause before he'd answered had been enough to show that my question had caught him off guard. Apparently something had happened to the pits – but if all the demons were gone as Sesshoumaru had guessed, then how could they be holding fights?

The man had left us at the door to the arena. Kagome and I walked alone on our way to the 'fishbowl'. "Do you think Sesshoumaru was wrong?" Kagome asked finally. "I mean, how could they still hold the fights?"

"I don't know." I answered. "But his reaction—something is up around here, and I want to know what it is." I opened the door to the Playground of the Rich, Powerful, and Depraved. The Fishbowl's walls were all glass, though the floor was wood. It was rather large, about the size of a small restaurant. In many ways, it was similar to a restaurant. Tables lined the glass walls where people watched the fights. There was a bar, and food was served here. Bets were made according to the goings on below – only the stakes were much higher than those among the spectators below – into the millions and even the billions occasionally. As it was, the place was about two-thirds full. Kagome and I snagged one of the last tables against the window.

We appeared to be just in time for the next fight. What looked to be a cat and a moth demon (don't underestimate them, I learned that the hard way long, long ago.) were released into the ring. They immediately behaved as demons always did – attacking each other without delay. Kagome watched the fight impassively. I was, for a moment, a little surprised that she could watch such gore without blinking, but then I remembered just how much of this sort of thing she had gone through back in the days when we had traveled together. It had never really occurred to me what effect such exposure might have on her. She must have noticed me watching, because she looked at me.

"What's wrong, Inuyasha?" She asked me.

"I was surprised that you would watch the fight so carefully, that's all." I answered. "I would have thought you would turn away."

She shrugged. "I've seen worse, when I was with you." She frowned, and lowered her voice. "But that's not why I was watching so carefully – Inuyasha, those aren't demons."

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking down through the glass at the ring. "They certainly look like demons to me."

"Yes, they look like them, but that's all. There is no aura of the supernatural about them – they're just images."

At that very moment, a man stopped at my side. He had with him a beautiful young woman, probably a few years older than Kagome.

"Mr. Inuyasha?"

"Yes?" I answered, my hand unconsciously straying to where my gun was hidden out of pure habit.

"I had heard you had appeared again, but I didn't believe the rumors. You are Inuyasha, the Ageless One?"

"That's a rather dramatic name for it, but yes, I suppose you could call me that." I answered guardedly.

"I had always pictured you as a demonic, but you appear to be human."

I snorted. "Then you obviously don't know much about demons. Even demons age, albeit very slowly – if they didn't, then I would hardly be out of the ordinary."

His face darkened for a moment, then cleared. "What's your secret?"

"I could hardly go around letting my secrets out, could I now?" I answered, inwardly shocked at his gall. As if I would spill all my secrets to some random stranger, even if I could. I had killed men for less. "Besides, even if I were amenable to letting people share my power, why would I share it with you out of everyone else in the world?"

"Be careful." The woman spoke up suddenly. "He isn't all that he seems, and neither is the girl."

"What do you mean by that?" I scowled.

"Yes, what do you mean by that, my dear?" The man asked, turning to the woman accompanying him with a warning look that I almost did not catch.

"I don't know what he is exactly, but the woman, she is a priestess, one with some of the old power."

I glanced at Kagome, who looked back at me. Her eyebrows were raised in surprise. I glanced back toward the woman "Where do you get such ideas?"

"She's a black priestess, Inuyasha. Just like Tsubaki." Kagome answered, staring down her natural adversary without any outward indication of fear.

"Well," the man said slowly after this announcement, "It appears that we have some very interesting guests here tonight, certainly more interesting than the usual riffraff that infest this place."

"Riffraff?" I questioned guardedly, looking around me. "I don't see anything of the sort here. Downstairs, certainly, but never here. They don't allow anything but class up here, or so they claim."

"You seem to know a lot about this place, Mr. Inuyasha." He answered. We were both pointedly ignoring the staring contest going on next to us.

"Know a lot about it? I helped build it – in a distant sort of way, of course. I was one of the first members. I helped to shape the society at least, before I got bored of Japan and trotted off to England for a while and learned some manners – about four hundred years ago or so." I paused for a long moment. "You might want to have a go at it yourself. Of course, I had to leave when they cut poor Charlie's head off. Cromwell was just a little too much of a radical for me."

"Is that so? You must forgive me – I don't know much about Europe's history. Makura, if you don't stop being rude to our guests, I will have to send you away."

"It is my nature, Akuma. I cannot abide the presence of such a thing as a white priestess." She spit the last two words spitefully and turned away.

The man she had called Akuma sighed. "So I see you have seen through our little charade, priestess." He said to Kagome.

"Why do you pretend so?" She asked. "Has it always been this way?"

Akuma looked around, seeing the close proximity of the other people. "Come with me, and I will explain." He turned to go, looking back only to see that we followed him. Kagome looked at me, and I nodded, wishing more than ever that carrying a katana would not seem so strange in this day and age.

Kagome and I arose from the table, and I gave one last look to the staged fights below us. I wondered how many of the Council was taking advantage of the fixed fights to make some extra money. Shaking my head, I put such thoughts out of my mind and left the fishbowl. At the moment, I had to focus on getting Kagome and myself out of here alive, preferably more knowledgeable about the situation before us than before we had subjected ourselves to such risks.

I followed the man called Akuma and the black priestess Makura down the painted hallway until we reached the only elevator in the place that would take one down into the restricted areas. Despite being one of the founders of Japan's black market, I was in no way on the inside of the workings these days. I myself had only been in this elevator once before. Once the doors closed, Akuma stopped the silent treatment.

"Something happened last night." He said quietly. I noticed that he was watching me and Kagome very carefully. "And we're still not sure how it could possibly have been done. Somehow, all of our Demons have been stolen."

"Stolen?" I questioned.

"Yes. They disappeared without a trace."

"Even the ones that were frozen?" I asked quickly, remembering my promise to Sesshoumaru. Even if I hadn't promised to find out about Sazura I would had asked the question – Sazura was no picnic, and I didn't altogether relish the idea of her running rampant again. I wasn't sure exactly why Sesshoumaru hated her so much – my brother had never been inclined to hate. He never hated me, for instance, not really. There was the whole thing that I had disgraced our family, and that our father had been killed while protecting my mother and I, but eventually he had gotten over that. Then, he saw me as little more than a nuisance, and then as a rival in the hunt for Naraku. But now my regained memories shed a little light on the situation as I remembered it. From a few passing remarks he had made during our hunt for her (we had banded together to find her at one point) I realized that Sazura must have been in some way connected to the death of the little human girl that he had traveled with. Rin, I believe he had called her.

If the other demons that had rested frozen alongside Sazura were in any way up to par with her, Tokyo was in great danger, and someone, somewhere held a trump card unlike any other, even the Americans with their biological weapons, and the former Soviet Union with their nukes – because demons possessed magic, and something that our scientists even couldn't create – a working brain, human intelligence, and in some cases, like Sesshoumaru, a brain that went above and beyond normal human intelligence.

The man raised an eyebrow at me. "So you knew about those, did you?" He asked. "Yes, those are gone too. We are very anxious to find out what could have happened. It was an inside job almost certainly – the cameras were disabled manually, nothing seems to be tampered with, even by magic."

"Why share all this with me? I haven't been a member of the Council of Ten in almost four hundred years." I asked. It wasn't that I minded them being so free with the information, but years of experience had taught me to always ask 'why' in situations such as the one I found myself in.

"Because you may be able to help us, Inuyasha." He answered. "You are one of the most experienced people that we know of, though not the oldest. You have lived your life, while most of the others merely existed for the past few centuries. It is my belief that you may be able to shed some light on the situation we have found ourselves in."

"You want my help to solve a mystery?" I asked incredulously. "I'm no Sherlock Holmes." I muttered to myself.

"Excuse me?" The elevator had stopped, accepted his clearance, and opened into a white hallway while we spoke, and Kagome and I had been lead to a door at the end of it.

"Nothing, something else I picked up while in Europe." I muttered. The door opened after he presented his clearance card and scanned it. I was beginning to feel as if I was in some government institution, not the underground black market that I had helped to build so long ago. Immediately I perceived that something was very wrong. We were in the room where Sazura and all the other frozen demons had been kept in their eternal, or nearly so, sleep. I had been in this room before, almost ten years ago – almost nothing had changed since then. All the tanks stood as they had that day a decade ago, except this time around, they were all empty. Whoever had stolen them had not taken them frozen, as I had surmised. Somehow, that was far more alarming.

"What in the world could have the power to control so many strong demons." I asked aloud, looking about.

"There was great evil here." Kagome said almost thoughtfully.

"Some have called us great evil." Akuma said, walking up to one of the tanks. "But what has passed here is greater than anything I have before seen. None of these controls has been tampered with – it is as if they were removed from the tanks without even opening them. I know of no magic in this world that is so powerful, to bring something solid through another solid without even the slightest damage – there is no residue. Makura can detect nothing."

"Nor can I." Kagome said, turning back to me. "Inuyasha…There is an evil here that I have felt before, in another form. Whoever did this is possessed of the same evil that turned Onigumo into Naraku."


	6. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

There was nothing more to be said. I did not like the idea of such evil returning into my life – one would have thought that both Kagome and I, not to mention Sesshoumaru, would only have to deal with such evil once in our lives, but apparently that was not the case. Perhaps the fates, or the Gods, or whoever was responsible for this happening consoled themselves by way of the 'payment' I had received in the form of the spell cast upon me to halt my aging. Kagome did not think that it would be Naraku himself returning, or even a semblance of him – for that was impossible, he was dead, and nothing of him had remained – we had made quite sure of that.

Mind, we were not altogether sure of the forces working in this strange case of the disappearing demons, but as near as she could determine, Kagome was under the impression that a sort of unearthly evil had manifested itself in Onigumo, which had corrupted him totally, leading to his throwing all faith and fear of divine retribution in favor of the power of revenge and ability that the body of a demons would bring him. It was this evil that Kagome believed had returned to this plane of existence and found another host body to play with. This person had been the one to release the demons – but it appeared to me that he was stronger than Naraku had been, because the demons, once unfrozen, had obviously gone quietly, something that I could not imagine happening, unless this being had devised some sort of spell that took hold, perhaps before their awakening, that bent them to his (or her) will.

Once I understood what had probably happened, I was not any more at ease than before I had been enlightened. If anything, I was more worried, but I did not have much time to think about the implications of Kagome's theory of an 'unearthly evil' just then. We left the pits soon after her crypic outburst, though we explained nothing to our companions. But the night's adventure was not over with.

Upon our return to the shrine, we immediately realized that something was happening. To be exact, a battle was happening, and Sesshoumaru was in the middle of it. He even seemed to be having some trouble, which (aside from the battle of Sazura, which I had deemed unique) had never happened before to my knowledge, save perhaps the struggles with Naraku. But if Kagome's theory about Naraku having been infused with the ultimate evil, even those battles should be shelves as unique. Of course, at the moment, I wasn't thinking of such things, I was wondering how I was going to get past them long enough to get to my weapon, which lay in Kagome's bedroom. That was the problem with these modern times; one could not carry even a beaten up katana with him at all times without raising many eyebrows and probably as many suspicions. The police would probably have something to say about it, at the very least. The result of all these modern precautions was that I was virtually unarmed.

Kagome and I ran up the stairs to get a better idea of what was happening, as from the street below we were only able to hear the sounds of battle. Once I got up there, a snarl unlike anything I'd uttered for over four hundred years escaped from my mouth and I jumped in front of Kagome, reverting to my half-blood form without even thinking about it. At the sound, my brother glanced my way.

"Oh, so you decided to return, did you?"

"Shut-up." I yelled at him. "And pay attention to what you're doing. I don't want to have to clean up your mess." I bent down in front of Kagome. "Just like old times." I said to her. She climbed on my back, and I paused, trying to map out my way to her window. It was at this moment that I realized that the demon my brother was fighting had decided to ignore my him in favor of a closer investigation of Kagome and I. A much closer investigation, that required immediate, instinctive action.

"Sankon Tetsusou!" I yelled, reacting out of pure habit with my oldest attack. A bit belatedly I remembered that I had my gun, and that it was still loaded with demons bullets, but upon reflection of the situation, I do believe that it would not have made a difference. "Watch your back!" I said then with a harsh laugh, for Sesshoumaru had appeared at the unprotected back of our assailant. My warning came too late, and my brother managed to make the skewering of his opponent look both noble and graceful, as usual.

"Did you have fun?" He asked me, carefully cleaning his sword and sheathing it.

"Did you?" I asked, looking down at the body. "What are you going to do with that?"

"Don't worry, little brother, I'll handle it-" At this point, the laughter of a woman filled the air. I was instantly reminded of Kagura before I realized what it was, or rather, who.

"Sesshoumaru." I said. He nodded.

"You can come out now, bitch." He called.

"Oh, come now, Sesshoumaru, you shouldn't take such a tone with a lady." She teased, materializing into thin air. Her laughter may have initially reminded me of Kagura, but in reality, Sazura is much more like the first demon Kagomen and I faced together, Yura of the hair. To tell the absolute truth, I would prefer Kagura, for all that Yura was far easier to beat. Sazura was far, far stronger than either Kagura or Yura had been, and we never had discovered the source of her powers.

"I see no lady." My brother said with a pretense of examining the surrounding area. "Unless of course, you refer to yourself, though you are more of a whore than a lady." His voice was cold, and his hand quickly returned to the hilt of the sword that he had only recently put away.

Sazura, Sesshoumaru's nemesis of old for reasons that I never knew outright, laughed lightly. "That was so impressive, Sesshie!" She giggled, and landed a little way before us.

"I was under the impression that I had permanently rid myself of you." Sesshoumaru said coldly. "What happened to change such a fate?"

"Oh, I was never dead, you should have realized that." She laughed again. "Of course, you hurt me very badly –how could you do that to an old friend Sesshoumaru?- and it took me a long time to recover. Then I sort of got distracted for a while, a few decades, maybe half a century – who knows? Just as I was about to go find you again, some bad men found me and locked me up. Isn't that horrible?"

"A fitting fate for a witch such as yourself, Sazura." Sesshoumaru answered. The degree of frigidity in his tone was unlike anything I'd heard from him in ages.

"Why do you hate me so, Sesshoumaru?" She pouted. "Is this about that little human girl again?"

Sesshoumaru's expression solidified further into what might have been solid stone. "You will never be forgiven for that, Sazura. I told you that before, and the curse still holds. It will do so for all time."

I raised my eyebrow. A curse? Sazura opened her mouth as if to speak again, when suddenly she jumped aside. A fire appeared where she had been standing, accompanied by the customary calling out of the attack, which I didn't catch. The fire was curiously blue. "Kuso!" I heard a curse from somewhere behind where the strange fire was now burning brightly. Just as suddenly as it appeared, it went out.

"Don't you know you're on hallowed ground?" The same voice said from the foliage of the trees. I was sure that I recognized it this time. "Evil demons such as yourself cannot abide long in the place where the sacred priestess Kikyou died, and where the spirit of the Inuyasha is guardian. You should leave while you still have the chance."

"Who dares to attack me in such cowardice? Show your face!" She snarled. "Or are you afraid that in a true battle you would be killed?"

"Of course not. But Kitsune are creatures of tricks and guile. Such is the way of the Fox." The voice went on. "I suppose I could throw tradition into the wind just this once and come out, but then you'd be in an even worse position than you are now."

"What do you mean?" She snarled. The cool demeanor of before was gone. I was not sorry to see it go, especially since I had never really seen her any other way. In some cynical part of my mind, it felt good to see Sazura sweat. She had certainly caused me enough trouble in the past. But it was odd, odd that she should become rattled so easily. Her hidden adversary had done little but make a few threats, which was far less than Sesshoumaru and I had done in the days we hunted her together.

"Well, there's Sesshoumaru, and the one next to him – or didn't you notice him? Not to mention me. But then there's the priestess. Did you forget that a sacred priestess' arrow of purification would kill one such as yourself, as your soul is so corrupted that nothing would remain? I have it on very good authority that she is no modern priestess of show, but the real thing. You might want to leave while you're still in one piece, Sazura."

She apparently agreed. "I'll be back, Sesshie, just you wait!" She called, and flitted out of view, faster than even my trained eye could see.

"You can come out now." I called in an amused tone. "The time for theatrical mysteriousness is past. I swear, sometimes you are far worse than I."

"Why is it, Inuyasha," He began, than paused in order to come into the faint light provided by the city's lights. He had never grown very big, as it was the nature of his kind to be small. But even though I had seen him many times throughout the ages, I remembered him best when he was tiny. "Why is it," Shippou repeated with a laugh, "that every time I see you, you're fighting?"

There was a stunned pause, which was exactly what he was going for, of course. "Shippou, what are you doing here?" I demanded. "I haven't seen you in ages. How did you find me?"

"It's actually only been a decade, not ages. I came to lend a hand, but I wasn't exactly looking for you. You're rather hard to find, Inuyasha, and I realized a very long time ago that looking for you is useless. Besides, I don't have your cell phone address. I came to help you with the situation here in Tokyo."

"Tokyo doesn't even know it has a situation. How is it that you know what even we didn't a few days ago?"

"I'll answer that in a moment." He answered. "I have a more pressing question. Why have you returned to yourself? Is it because you found Kagome?"

"Yes." I answered, glancing at her, noticing for the first time that she was staring at the newcomer.

"Evening, Kagome, or is it good morning??" He said to her finally.

"Shippou?" She asked, then, surprising all of us, broke into a run and threw herself at him. "You grew up!"

"We do that." He answered in consternation.

"And you're cute!" She added, and Shippou stiffened and looked warily toward me. Even in the darkness, I could tell that he was blushing.

"Is this all just a really strange coincidence?" He asked finally. "I mean, all of us being here at the same time?" He asked, addressing everyone. "Or is something major going on here that I should know about?"

"You're the one who showed up here, of all places. You appear to know more about what is going on than anyone else here." I pointed out. "I know for a fact that you never knew where this shrine was, because you couldn't go through the well. So spit it out, what are you doing here?"

"I've been sort of keeping an eye on what the underworld in Kyoto is doing. You were right, Inuyasha, you do find a lot of things out by doing that. There's a mysterious man that's been showing up recently. I was a bit suspicious of him, so when I heard a rumor concerning the demons stored in Tokyo in connection with him, I decided to come down here and see if I couldn't find Sesshoumaru. I just followed his energy. It rises when he's fighting."

"As if I didn't know." I answered sarcastically, swinging Tetsusaiga up on my shoulder as I always had in the old days.

"Was that Sazura? I thought you and Sesshoumaru killed her a long time ago."

"I didn't really do anything then, and we both thought she was dead too. I found out recently that wasn't' the case, but at the time she was out of commission." I paused for a moment, considering. "A few years ago, I got someone at the pits to take me downstairs, and there were all sorts of upper level demons in a sort of frozen state, and I saw her there. I didn't say anything to Sesshoumaru about it until the demons escaped, because until that moment, it hadn't occurred to me that she might be alive. I was sure Sesshoumaru had killed her. It didn't occur to me that what I'd seen could be a collection of demons that might be unfrozen at any moment to wreak havoc on Tokyo. But when there were suddenly demons wandering around the city, I thought I should say something about it." I paused. "This is really bad, you know. People had enough trouble dealing with demons in the old days, but in this day and age, most people don't even believe that demons really exist. No one except for a very select few will be equipped to deal with the situation that we have on our hands, and most of those people aren't on our side."

"Do you know how the demons were released?"

"No, and we don't know who did it either. Kagome and I managed to get into the classified parts of the pits, and I think the man who took us there was a member of Tokyo's Council of Ten. But he told us that the cameras had been disabled, and all we really know is that whoever did it left behind a rather strong aura."

"You took Kagome to the pits?" Shippou demanded, and I nodded with a shrug.

"The demons have been attacking the shrine in great numbers." Kagome said.

"They can probably sense the presence of the jewel." I answered.

She shook her head. "But they were doing so last night, before you returned to yourself. Up until last night, our god shielded the presence of the jewel from most demon detection."

"What happened to your god?" Shippou asked curiously.

Kagome jerked her thumb in my direction. "The demon part of him was our god, but since he's returned to himself, we don't have one anymore. But since the demons seemed to be very aware of what our shrine hides, that sort of suggests that they were being guided, maybe even controlled by someone who knows about the jewel."

I nodded. "Shippou, you said that there was a mysterious man in Kyoto. What do you know about him?"

Shippouu raised his arms and shrugged. "Nothing really. I've got some contacts that I can trust, and they told me about him. No one knows who he is, or where he came from. If it was him, I don't know how he got in to the pits, with their current security being so strenuous. For that matter, it's curious that anyone could get into those areas to do something like that with the way that the underworld has been happening lately."

"They're acting like old women." I snorted. "I never thought I'd see the day when the underworld actually bothered to check up on the background of their visitors. It's ridiculous."

Kagome looked around. "You know, I do have a house, and it is a bit chilly out here. Why don't we go inside and try to piece together what we know in there." We all agreed.

"So what do we know?" Shippouu asked once we were all crowded around Kagome's table again.

I tried to sum up. "All of the demons that are under the control of Tokyo's underworld were somehow released. They all seem to know the jewel is here, and have been attacking. We think they're controlled somehow, and you mentioned a man in Kyoto that might be connected."

"That isn't much." Sesshoumaru said critically.

"We also think that this man may be the new host of the same evil that infected Naraku." Kagome pointed out.

"What's this?" Shippou asked in surprise.

"Kagome felt the aura that the person who released the demons in the pits left behind. She thinks that there may be a connection between this person and Naraku."

"Well, not exactly." She clarified. "I think that this evil is a separate thing, a sort of parasite thing that has to find a host. When the host dies, like when we killed Naraku, it flees and finds a new one. I thought I detected something like that when we killed Naraku, but I didn't think anything of it at the time. He was gone, and I got distracted by Inuyasha killing himself." She looked reproachfully at me. "But after what we've seen and heard in the past few days, it came back to me. There might be something to it. Do you know anything else about this man Shippou?"

The fox-demon shook his head. "No. He seems to be shrouded in shadow and mystery. He's nameless and faceless. Not even Kyoto's underworld has any record of him, and they've been rather careful about that sort of thing lately." He shook his head. "I really am disgusted with them. Humans are getting so paranoid in these peaceful times. And the one time their obsessive record-keeping might come in handy, they come up short."

"What about Sazura."

"What about her?" My brother asked in his most emotionless voice. He was making an effort, I could tell. Sazura's reappearance seemed to be having a profound effect on him. Once again I wondered why my brother had hated the demon so much.

"Maybe it was just me, but didn't it seem to you like she was connected to that demon who was attacking the shrine when Kagome and I returned? After all, she was hiding in the bushes, and she's always been sneaky." I rubbed my hands together. "All right, why don't we consider Kagome's theory for a moment. This evil fled Naraku when we killed him, and has finally returned to annoy us again. Consider the similarities. This man, like Naraku, is very good at hiding. Shippou described him as nameless and faceless, which reminds me of the Onigumo/Naraku mess way back when. After all, we didn't even have a clue that Naraku existed until 50 years after he began causing trouble."

"One could probably assume that this evil can give its host incredible power." Kagome noted. "After all, he already had a huge chunk of the jewel right after we started out. It hadn't even been broken for very long."

"Right." I said. "And that was before he got strong enough to start creating extensions of himself in the form of Kagura, Kanna, and the rest. I'm sure we all noticed that he liked to get others to do his dirty work. If he was the one who released those demons, then he may have chosen Sazura to head his little army. After all, she is fairly powerful. She probably jumped at the opportunity."

Sesshoumaru scowled, but didn't say anything.

"Why is it that you hate her anyway?" Kagome asked him curiously.

"It is a manner of principle." He answered in a low voice.

"Everything is a manner of principle for you." I retorted. He glared balefully at me and I shrugged. "Whatever. If you don't want to tell me, I can't do anything about it."

"Meanwhile, what are we supposed to do about all these demons wandering around the city?" Kagome wanted to know. "Not to say anything of the danger to everyone else, they're going to be coming after me for the jewel, and I can't exactly get on the subway with my bow. I do have classes to attend, you know."

"There isn't danger in the daytime." Sesshoumaru announced in his usual curt manner. He left us even more confused than we had been before he'd spoken, as often happened with him. I'd given up on his ever learning to explain himself.

"What d'ya mean?" I demanded finally.

"The demons aren't out during the day." He answered. "Or did you fail to notice that there weren't any alerts?"

"That's right." Kagome said, leaning back on her heels and thinking about it. "Even the news didn't report anything out of the ordinary. Someone must be reigning the demons in during the day."

"And keeping them under firm control." Shippou nodded. "I don't know that they've attacked anywhere but this shrine even during the night."

"We will go about our usual pastimes." Sesshoumaru glanced at me. "I have an important meeting tomorrow." With this goodbye, he rose from the table and glided out the door.

We all watched him leave, then looked at each other. "Well?" I said after a moment. "What do we do now?"

"I'm for sleep." Kagome said. "It's really late, and I have class tomorrow morning."

I glanced at Shippou. "And what incredibly important engagement do you have planned for tomorrow morning?" I asked dryly.

"Nothing. I took a leave of absence. I'll have to check up on things from time to time, but those sort of things tend to run themselves. That can happen when you've been in business for a century or two."

"Ha, ha. Why don't you come along with me then? That way Kagome can go to bed." I suggested, getting to my feet. Shippou followed suit. He was closer to the door, and waved to Kagome as he departed. I was impressed with his ability to find the door so easily, considering that he had never been here before, and we had been a little distracted coming inside. I was going to follow when Kagome plucked at my sleeve to get my attention. I looked down at her in surprise.

She rubbed her eye tiredly, then smiled up at me. Reaching out and tentatively taking my hand and holding it loosely, she spoke, "I'm glad that we went out there tonight, Inuyasha. Even though it was kind of scary."

"Really? That's good, I guess." I replied. "Are you sure that you'll be all right here by yourself?" After all, it was still night-time, and more demons could come at anytime. I had always been ridiculously paranoid when it came to her, and I could not help but worry.

She smiled again. It had been so very long since I had seen that smile, and it made my heart ache. She leaned against me, and I put my arm around her waist, hugging her. "I'll be fine." I heard her answer softly, "I've had to protect my own self for the past few years."

"I'm sorry, Kagome." I whispered, hanging my head. What had I been thinking when I'd made that wish on the stupid jewel? Well, I knew very well what I had been thinking, and under the circumstances, it had made perfect sense. It might have worked out as I had intended, if Kikyou had not screwed up everything by forgiving me and bringing me back. Then again, everything had worked out, in a way. Maybe.

"It's all right." She replied, sounding more like her old, bouncy self than before. "I'm glad that you came back to me, that's all." She reached up and slipped her arms around my waist, and kissed me before I could really figure out what she was up to.

I'd kissed lots of women before. After all, I'd been alive for over five hundred years, and during the vast majority of that time, I hadn't realized that the reason I was alive so long was because I was waiting for Kagome. So, naturally I hadn't seen anything wrong with having mistresses, and I had had lots of them. But I had never married. It was not just that I was unwilling to have a wife that would grow old while I stayed young. I had never felt strongly enough for any woman to tie myself to her, and finally I realized why. Even if I had not remembered her, I was still in love with Kagome.

I may have kissed a shameful number of women in my unnaturally long life, but this was different. I had not cared about any of the others, not like I loved Kagome. She was so soft, and warm, and I was suddenly and inexplicably thrilled with life and everything in it. All the problems that had crowded my mind in the past few days melted away, and everything stopped for a long moment. I had waited five hundred years to find her again, and now that I had her, I realized that if it meant that I could be with her, I would have waited thousands.

To my disappointment, she pulled away, her face red. "Good night." She whispered, and ran up the stairs to her bedroom. Same old Kagome. I watched her go, then remained in the hallway for another minute or so, trying to pull myself together. Then, I finally turned around and went out the door, my step far lighter than it had been previously.

"Do you have to be so disgustingly happy?" Shippou asked me in annoyance as we walked down the street towards the subway station. I was hoping to get there in time to catch the last train, so that we wouldn't have to walk the fifteen or so blocks home. I was feeling a little nervous about leaving Kagome home alone, especially since we'd discussed the possibility that the shrine was the only thing being attacked. There was some relief in not having to worry about all the defenseless people in Tokyo who wouldn't be attacked on the streets by drooling demons, but I couldn't help but worry about Kagome, even though she could protect herself just fine. Old habits die hard, and I had always been very proficient in worrying-about-Kagome-ology.

"Sorry?" I replied, not sounding penitent in the slightest, a stupid grin on my face. Something occurred to me suddenly. "How tired are you really feeling?"

"Why?" He asked suspiciously.

I stopped and glanced around. "Because we have a choice here. We can go to bed like good little boys, or we can try to do some secret sniffing out of our own."

"Do you mean that literally?"

"Possibly." I shrugged. I hadn't thought about it before I'd said it. "The things that we discussed earlier worry me. I'm going to be restless unless I do something about it. Wanna come?"

"Where were you going to go?" He asked, knowing very well that I hadn't the slightest idea. He waited for a moment to give me a chance to answer as a matter of custom, not because he expected me to have any last minute revelations. "I didn't think so." He sighed. "I suppose that you just intend to wander around until something occurs to you, as usual. I had better come around with you just to make sure you don't get into trouble."

"I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself." I retorted, not giving him my full attention. I was thinking, which I had learned to do since our days together in the feudal period. Now I tried to consider what might happen before I went through with my drastic urges, which was quite a change from my old method of problem solving. Shippou might be surprised to hear this, though it had been so many years since the days of our search for the jewel shards. When I had said sniffing out, I had only been using a figure of speech. But now that I had regained my real body, it might not be such a bad idea.

Shippou peered up into my face. "What's going on in there?" He asked, knocking on the side of my head.

"Quit it!" I snapped irritably, swiping at him. "Come on, we're going back." I turned on my heel and started going back toward Kagome's house.

"How do I let you drag me into things like this?" He muttered, trailing along behind me. "By all rights, I should be sleeping all happy and snug in a hotel room somewhere."

"You'll be fine. If you could handle not sleeping for days when you were such a young child, you can certainly do it now. And don't tell me that you're too old for this, because I don't want to hear it." I called back to him, jumping up on the fence that lined the sidewalk, walking along the top of it. I used to astound my friends with my ability to do this in the old days, even though it wasn't much of a feat for anyone with decent balance. Right now though, it was a matter of vantage point. Even though we had decided that someone must be keeping the demons under tight reign, it didn't mean that I was going to let my guard down while knowing that they were out there somewhere. After all, Sazura was probably the one controlling them, or someone close to her, and she had recognized me. I would not put it past her to sic them on me for sport, even if she did not know my relationship to the girl who carried the Jewel of the Four Souls.

"Where are we going then?" He asked, looking up at me and shaking his head at what I was doing. "I'm just glad no one's around." He knew telling me to get down, because he knew I would not. If my older brother could run around here at night undisguised and in his full demon form, dressed to the nines in his ceremonial robes without drawing attention, then one outwardly human man could walk on a fence without fear. Like Sesshoumaru had said, the only people that we likely to see me this time of night were drunk.

"Don't tell me that you actually have a plan for once." Shippou said.

I contrived to look hurt. "Of course I do. Sort of."

"Well? What is it then?"

I took a deep breath. "It might be a bit of a long shot, in a way. But it's worth a shot. One of the reasons that it took so long for Sesshoumaru to get rid of Sazura was because he had trouble tracking her anywhere. She was always careful never to leave a trail for him to follow."

"Didn't you two hunt her together?"

"Not really. We happened to have met up just before you came around. It was only by chance that the two of us happened to be around when he killed her – or whatever happened. I mean, I didn't really have much of a grudge against her, except that she'd tried to kill me quite a few times. Maybe she knew who I really was. But when you joined us, we had been looking for her together for a while."

Shippou shook his head. "When I saw you two together, I nearly had a heart attack. I mean, I knew that Kohaku had told him what had happened to you, and that he didn't really seem interested in you anymore, but for a split second there I was certain he was going to kill you."

I shrugged. "He says he's changed. Anyway, the point is that Sazura was just unfrozen, and doesn't seem to quite have gotten her bearings. You didn't know her as well as Sesshoumaru and I did, but she wasn't acting quite herself tonight. For one thing, she wasn't moving as quickly as she usually did, and your little threats really rattled her, which was strange. I think that she might be just disoriented enough to have left a trail of some sort, or to allow one of her pets to have done so anyhow."

"And you want to follow it. How do you propose we do that?"

"How else? I was going to follow the scent."

He looked carefully at me, at first unsure how to broach the issue. "You can't."

"Ya think so?" I glanced over at him and rolled my eyes. Then I made a little picture of my half-blood self in my head and changed into that form. "How about now?"

"Oh yeah." He answered, grinning sheepishly. "I keep forgetting about that. I guess I'm just so used to you being human all the time. But do you really think that she would have been that careless?"

"Maybe. Between the two of us, we should be able to find a clue of _some_ sort." We'd reached the shrine by now. "Let's try to be quiet. I don't want Kagome thinking that I'm one of those demons attacking the shrine and shooting me in the back."

Shippou nodded. "Duly noted." We went up the stairs and started to look around. I gave into that familiar urge and jumped into the God tree and looked around. It was not that I really expected to see anything, but it was a good view of the complex. In my half-blood form my senses were greatly heightened, and I could see a lot better. I also had an insane ability to jump very high, which I was really starting to enjoy now that the shock of regaining my body and memories had started to wear off. I scrutinized the area from this vantage point for a while, then jumped back down and trotted over to the well house.

"What are you doing?" Shippou hissed in my direction. "She wasn't anywhere near there."

I stopped and walked over to where he was standing. "Habit I guess. In the old days, things tended to revolve around the well, ya know."

"Try to stay focused. She was standing right here." He paused, and reverted to his natural form, deactivating the spells that made him look human. I realized that he was lucky. It was easier for Kitsune to disguise themselves than almost any other demons. It was like second nature to him. "Did you see which way she went when she ran away?" He asked, his fluffy tail twitching slightly.

"I thought she went towards the stairs." I answered. "I might have picked something up when we were still in the street. Don't forget that the first time I ever caught her scent was tonight, since I was always human before. Still, maybe there is something." I sniffed the air experimentally. "In fact, I'm fairly sure that I detected something running off in a westerly direction when we were coming up the steps, but I couldn't be certain."

"Why don't we go down there then?" He suggested, turning in that direction. I glanced back at the house that had seemed so familiar upon my arrival here several days before. My eyes stopped on Kagome's darkened window. If it meant that she would be safe, I would follow this trail past the gates of Hell. It was not as if I had never been there before, however short my stay had been.

"Why don't we?"

I had not really believed that Sazura might have left a trail, but I wanted to try anyway. It bothered me that she had shown up at the shrine. Perhaps it was because Kagome had always been safe in her world, with a few notable exceptions, and the idea that Sazura could so easily waltz into the protected place that had always been the Higurashi shrine touched a nerve. The problem was that I could not exactly recall how Sesshoumaru and I had managed to find her last time, but he was not around to ask anymore. But if we had tracked her down before, we could certainly do it again. But for the meantime I would have to find another way.

But luck was on our side tonight. She had actually left a trail to follow, though I maintained at least enough caution to realize that it could easily be a trap. However, if it was not, we would probably not have this sort of chance again. The track was not the easiest trail to follow, and we could have never managed it if we had not both been in our natural forms and using our sensitive noses. We were on our guard the entire time as well for a possible trap. After all, the presence of the trail was far too good to be true, but we found nothing out of the ordinary along the way, and it was a long way.

We ended up in the clichéd destination for recon missions: the abandoned warehouse down by the waterfront near Tokyo Bay. We looked at each other with expressions of pity before seeking out a window to peer inside. Some people were just so dramatic. The last leg of the journey had been the hardest, because the bay was one of those places that was packed with people even at night, and we obviously could not be seen in our demonic forms.

We were on alert as we moved about the darkened alleyways between the warehouses on the wharf. I have been around for quite some time, and the years had made me cynical. I did not believe for a moment that this was due to providence, and Shippou was no different. We had hypothesized earlier during our little meeting that there must be some sort of connection between Sazura and that ominous dark power that Kagome and that black priestess had sensed in the pits, given that she had in all likelihood been released by whoever had that power. I was bearing in mind Kagome's 'evil spirit' theory, that some power had possessed Naraku, and was now possessing our ominous friend, and so half-expected to run into the once-familiar barrier that had always surrounded Naraku's castles. Luckily, there was not anything of that sort in place here. Tetsusaiga still possessed the power to cut them, but once again, I had left it at Kagome's, because I had intended to take the train back to the hotel.

This place was more than a little creepy. A week ago, I would probably not have come this far, not at night with just Shippou, and not after Sazura, particularly because there was a good chance that there would be significant reinforcements waiting wherever she was going. I had spent a lot of time with demons during my long years and was well aware of the weaknesses of the human body, strong as I was for a man. I would not have dared risk myself, or Shippou. But now that I had regained my form, things were a little different. We could not have followed the trail without the better sense of smell of our respective natural forms anyhow. It was a good thing we had transformed into our natural forms along the way, because there was energy involved in Shippou's transformation, if not my own, that could be sensed by those aware of such things. We were trying to keep a low profile here.

We finally located a window and peered inside. Although the window was grimy, I could see plenty well enough to recognize one of the two figures within the warehouse. Since light would attract attention were it streaming through the windows of an abandoned warehouse, there was only a small halo of light surrounding Sazura and her hooded companion. I was instantly reminded of Naraku and that baboon coat that he always wore. As time wore on, I was becoming more and more convinced that Kagome might be right on the money with her evil spirit theory. Sazura was kneeling, bent slightly over before her companion. It was not a pose of reverence. Sazura revered no one but herself. It looked more like she was being punished.

The other was humanoid at least, though we wouldn't see much more than its general size and shape. That didn't tell us much, as most strong demons have humanoid forms as well as their stronger ones, like Sesshoumaru, although I couldn't recall the last time I saw him transform. Besides, if he could control or hurt Sazura, there was little chance that he was human. A little way behind her stood three demons of the sort that had attacked Kagome and me yesterday night. I could not tell if they were being controlled or if they were just too scared to approach any closer.

Shippou nudged me and gestured to the side. We tiptoed off into the deeper shadows along the wall. We could see from where we were, but we wanted to hear. I certainly could not read lips, not in Japanese, and not from that distance, even with my heightened senses. Besides, even if I could, I would only know what Sazura was saying, and I was not as interested in her as I was in her companion. He or she appeared to be the brains, so we needed to find somewhere that we could eavesdrop from. We skirted the walls around to the back, but found nothing. I hesitated to go on the roof as I was not sure if our footfalls would not be heard from within, but it appeared to be our only option at this point.

Shippou and I jumped lightly onto the flat roof, and we were surprised to find that there was a door that led inside. I wouldn't have expected a warehouse like this one to have either a flat roof or a second story, but this showed how much I knew. Once inside, we found ourselves on a catwalk. It was intended to lead to a number of rooms that would have probably served as offices had the warehouse been in use. Obviously, we weren't interested in them, except maybe as cover. I could only see a faint outline of the catwalk, due to the scant light provided, but in my half-demon form, it was more than enough. After coming through the door, we paused for a few minutes to ensure that we had not been detected before slowly creeping forward. With our heightened senses we could hear the conversation from either position anyway.

When we had entered, a long silence had stretched between Sazura and her companion, but one that did not appear to be connected to our entrance. They seemed to remain unaware, or were pretending to be. I was beginning to wonder if this might not be a trap after all. Finally the hooded figure began talking again.

"Did I not tell you not to attack the priestess? She is dangerous." It demanded angrily. So the hooded one was male, or at least it sounded that way. He paused. Perhaps he expected a reply, but she offered neither explanation nor apology. "I freed you from your captivity. How dare you disobey me?"

When the man in the pits had told me and Kagome about the theft of the frozen and caged demons, I had assumed that a human had been behind it. Demons usually leave behind certain clues of their presence, clues that even black priestesses are sensitive too. That, and the fact that the underworld well knows the power of demons, and they are very careful about where they let them go. I would imagine that a collection of frozen demons would be on the list of things that the Council of Ten did not want their demonic peers to see, so I had assumed no demons even knew it was there. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was not a human, even a human like Naraku had once been, who had stolen the demons that lay in suspended animation beneath the pits.

"But, she is only a weak human!" Sazura protested.

"You are an ancient." Her master said sharply. Sazura was at least as old as I am, if not more, and fell well within the category of the "ancient" demons. "You lived during the days when the world's mystics still retained their true power. You should know well the power that some humans possess."

"No anymore." Sazura said. "They don't possess it anymore. Not these days."

"This woman does." I narrowed my eyes. He was certainly right about Kagome, but how in the world did he come to know that about her?

"But you want the jewel, don't you?" Sazura began before her answer was cut off by a cry of pain, and her lithe body twisted in agony. But we had seen nothing. She clutched at her chest, but it was unclear whether this was the center of her pain, or if she was trying to catch her breath again.

"Idiot! The 'weak' human defeated you. Any human woman who can hold the jewel of the four souls from those who seek it for so long is no weakling. Besides, you of all people should know the strength of the Lord of the Western Lands. He has chosen to protect the shrine rather than taking the jewel for himself. As usual, his motives are shrouded in mystery." The hooded figure paused. "He has not sought power for the sake of power in hundreds of years. But that does not explain his willingness to protect the shrine and it's maiden. Why?" He mused.

Sazura struggled to her feet, and spat. "That's easy."

"Did I ask you?" The figure asked coldly.

"Perhaps." She answered without concern. Whatever pain he had subjected her to had obviously not removed her spirit. "I know Sesshoumaru more or less inside out. We've been friends for a long time, although I accidentally got rid of his only weakness centuries ago."

"Stupid of you."

"I was young and foolish. Either way, I already know that you only stole and unfroze me because you can't decide how to handle him. Sesshoumaru is a strange one, he has always been a strange one. He takes his birthright very, very seriously. He probably does not seek it because the use of a gem to gain power is below him. It's part of his superiority complex." She paused. "He does not wish it for himself, but I don't know why he would defend it." She paused. "Perhaps – there are things in his past shrounded in mystery, but I have heard that he was involved somehow in the final battle of the legend of the Jewel of the Four Souls, which this girl is connected to as well. Perhaps that is why? But I do not know details of those times – I was in Kyushu then, too far away to know."

I paused in consideration. I had been able to sort my memories out a bit, but not completely. I did not know why Sesshoumaru had come to help Kagome, but he had obviously been doing it for a while. I should ask Kagome about it. I did not know much about the history between him and Sazura either. Sesshoumaru never talked much, especially about himself. Centuries back, I had joined up with him to hunt her down for reasons of my own, and had not questioned my companion's motives then. At the time, I had reasons of my own for hating her. I had not known then that Sesshoumaru was my brother, but he had not killed me yet, so I had trusted him enough to help him find her. Curious, and hoping that she might shed some light on the cause of his hatred, , I crept forward a little bit, which turned out to be a mistake.

The hooded one held up an arm to stop her and she shied away, expecting him to hurt her again. But he only stood stock still, appearing to be listening. "There is someone here." Shippou and I tensed, but didn't move. "I didn't realize that anyone would be foolish enough to follow you here."

"Are you sure?" Sazura asked with an eyebrow raised. "Maybe it's just a rat or something."

"Silence. It is not something, but someone. A human – or perhaps not." The hooded one whirled around and pointed right at us. "You, come out. Now."

Shippou and I looked at each other. Slowly, I stood up, motioning for Shippou to remain within the shadows. The mysterious figure did not necessarily know there were two of us, and I did not want to accidentally reveal that fact. I glanced quickly around, and spotted a staircase that led down from the catwalk to the ground.

"Yes? What can I do for you?" I called in my most mocking-challenge voice, sort of trying to distract them as I reverted to my human body. He had not been aware I was not human, and I wanted to keep my half-blood identity under wraps as long as possible. After all, it would only take a moment to revert back if I needed to. I walked soundlessly down the stairs to where they stood.

"So you finally noticed someone was here, did you? I was beginning to wonder how long you were going to run your mouths before you realized you weren't alone." I stepped out onto the concrete floor of the warehouse, and stopped..

"Who are you?" Sazura demanded, clenching her fists.

"Oh, come now, Sazura." I chided, "Don't tell me that you've forgotten about me already. It hasn't been all that long." I stepped into the light.

"Inuyasha!" She gasped, stepping back in alarm. Her companion jumped as well, probably recognizing my name. He seemed to know too much to be a regular human, and from the reaction of the doorman at the pits, I was obviously still notorious in some places. If this man was after the Jewel of the Four Souls then he had almost certainly heard my name before. It remained to be seen if he knew of the the "ageless" Inuyasha as well as the one who had loved the reincarnated priestess in the legend of the jewel.

"That's right." I said to Sazura. "The Ageless One is back to put you away, this time for good."

"Oh, it's just you." Sazura said in a disgusted tone, and glanced disinterestedly over at her master. "He isn't anything to be concerned about. A simple human who has not yet managed to die." She looked back over in my direction, eyeing me very carefully. "But he is a friend of Sesshoumaru – if Sesshoumaru has friends, that is." She looked at me. "It's been such a very long time since I've seen you, Inuyasha. You look different. Where have you been all this time?"

I looked down at my clothes. "It's the modern dress. It makes everyone look different. But I think the question is where have you been? Last I heard Sesshoumaru and I had dispatched you for good. We were quite excited about that. Whatever happened to that?"

She shrugged. "I wasn't dead. I've the ability to fake death rather well when badly wounded.. You really should have beheaded me if you didn't want me to come back. My kind doesn't die easily. Later, much later, some human found me and put my in a suspended animation of some sort and I was only recently released." She put her hands on her hips and looked me over carefully. "Tell me, how is it that a weak human such as yourself has managed to survive this long? Has Sesshoumaru been watching over you or something?"

"Hardly."

"How did you find me?"

"I was taking a tour of this particular industrial district tonight." I answered sarcastically, deciding not to waste the time spinning a story for her. I decided to get down to business. "What is it that you want with the Jewel of the Four Souls?" I demanded of the hooded character. I was not going to give them any clue that the "ageless" Inuyasha and the half-blood from the tales were the same person. Perhaps it was the similarity that her master bore to my ancient enemy Naraku, but I was not going to offer any information I was not certain he already possessed. I was determined to settle this in my human form. To a demon, a human form seemed far inferior, but my body had served me well during the last five hundred years, and though I had regained my true, stronger form, I would not be quite so quick to write this still more familiar form off as inadequate just yet.

Sazura tried to back hand me, but she should have realized that I was too quick even for her by this time. "How dare you be so impertinent!" She scolded as I danced easily out of the way. "You shouldn't have come here, Inuyasha, you are no match for us."

"I don't know about that." I answered with a wink. "I seem to remember you begging for your life just before Sesshoumaru dealt the finishing blow. We can put you away again. Or is there some reason that you're so different this time around? Have you gained some actual skill? Or intelligence?" I was goading her, but I wanted to know. Sazura was a hothead, and she sometimes let things slip when she was angry. What _was_ behind that aura that Kagome and that dark priestess had detected in the pits?

"Nothing that concerns you." She answered with a toss of her head.

"Only the jewel, I presume. Things that involve the jewel tend to get loud and messy very quickly. If you really want it, you should act quickly. Don't expect anything revolving around that jewel to remain quiet in the demon community for very long."

"What do you know about it?" She demanded, trying to grab me by the collar and failed miserably once more. I had dealt with the woman so many times in the past that I could predict her actions with reasonable accuracy. She did not seem to realized that even though I was a human, I was plenty quick? I ducked out of the way before taunting her some more.

"Don't be stupid Sazura. Of course I know a thing or two about the jewel. I am named for the legendary Inuyasha, after all. Do you think that I am not well acquainted with the magical object that was at the center of all the legends, and that a gem bearing the same name had suddenly and mysteriously appeared recently in Tokyo? Give me a little credit. Even though I don't spend much time in Japan, it doesn't mean that I don't keep tabs on some of the things that go on here."

"Then you know where the gem is now?" The hooded creature, or whatever it was, asked in a haunting voice. "And where it originates from?"

"But of course. I was born in the same village that Kikyou lived." I answered. "Stories last a long time in a small village such as that one. What I'd like to know is how you came to hear about it. The jewel faded very quickly into legend after everything was said and done."

This…thing knew too much about everything surrounding our adventure with the Jewel of the Four Souls for comfort. I knew for a fact that none of this was in a book anywhere. The legends had lasted only by hearsay, and a few notes that Miroku had found the time to take down. "Maybe in the human world," He allowed, "But not the demon one. _Born_ there you say?" He questioned.

I paused for a split second. "In a manner of speaking." I shrugged. Inuyasha the 'ageless one' had been, at least according to the stories that I had heard about myself. That was the place the Ageless One had first known himself in, and I had always considered early Edo my birthplace, and had always spoken of it as such. "I wasn't exactly born, but what does it really matter? What do you want with the Jewel of the Four Souls? It has never brought anyone anything but sorrow."

"I wouldn't say that. To the Mistress Centipede it brought power unlike anything she had ever dreamed of." The dark one observed. Sazura had fallen into a respectful silence at the words of her master, which was amazing to me, knowing her as I did.

"Well, centipede demons are not known for their imaginations." I scoffed loudly with a derisive laugh, remembering vividly that first night that I had seen Kagome. That centipede certainly had been obsessed with the jewel, no doubt.

"She needed the jewel's power to regenerate her broken body. Not to mention that she had tasted the power the jewel had to offer. What do you expect from such a simple being?" The dark one said.

I narrowed my eyes. "True. How is it that you know of Lady Centipede? That was very long ago, even before my time. I wasn't aware that you were so ancient, honored one." I said the last bit in heavy sarcasm. In all truth, I didn't understand how he could possibly know anything about those early events in our story, and it unbalanced me. "It isn't a well known part of the legend, after all."

"How do you know about her then?" Sazura demanded.

"Don't be stupid." I told her. "I learned them from the sister of Kikyou, of course. She was still alive when I lived in the village, and took interest in me because of my name. What did you think?" I crossed my arms and smirked at her with an evil glint in my eye. "What do you want with the jewel, Sazura? It is well guarded, as your friend says. What makes you think that it's worth coming up against a powerful priestess as the girl who now guards it is reported to be?"

"The power it can give is well worth the effort." Sazura answered.

"That might be." I allowed. "It may have given Mistress Centipede a lot of power, but you should note the fact that neither she, nor anyone else ever retained the power that the jewel gave for very long." I narrowed my eyes at her, and also at the hooded creature who stood a few paces behind her. "Stay away from the jewel, Sazura." I cautioned darkly. "It has never brought any good to anyone. The jewel has a bad habit of turning the intentions of the user back on them in nasty ways." I smirked at her ironically, "Think of it as a warning, one between old friends."

"Yeah, right. I'm not afraid of you, or that little human girl who guards the Jewel. Even Sesshoumaru doesn't worry me anymore."

I gave her a long, appraising look. "Very well. If that's the way that you really want it, then I cannot change your mind." I intoned darkly, the brightened with a sardonic smirk. "Your sudden reappearance really rankles me, Sazura." I reached into my coat and my hand closed around the cool metal handle of the gun that I carried, the one loaded why demon-bullets. Just the sort of things needed to deal with her if the need arose, or if I got bored, which I was already with this conversation. "We aren't getting anywhere here. Why don't you and I have a little rematch? It'll be fun."

"You aren't anything without little Sesshoumaru." She scoffed.

"Sesshoumaru is hardly little, even in this day and age with all the foreigners running about." I observed. "What, are you afraid, Sazura? Have those years of being frozen softened your spirit?"

"Things have changed this time, Inuyasha." She said angrily, advancing on me.

I called her bluff and didn't move. "Of course they have, Sazura. These days, we use different weapons than the last time you and I went head to head." I pulled my gun out and looked it over. I noticed that she stopped her advance, but she did not look alarmed, not that I had expected her to. "They're more powerful, I suppose, but they do tend to take the fun out of things very quickly." I tossed the gun negligently into the shadows and shot her a direct stare. As if knowing my plan, Shippou emerged calmly from said shadows with the gun held loosely in his hand and stood next to me. I glanced at him, then returned my gaze to hers. "What do you say, Sazura? Another match between you and I? No tricks, and no allies, all the cards on the table?"

"With you? I don't think so. You'd cheat. There's no other way that you would try to go one on one with me."

"Are you questioning my honor?" I hissed dangerously. "Unless, of course, you're afraid."

She snarled and pulled the giant five-point ninja star off of her back and set it down next to her, then hurled herself in my direction. "You're going to die, human!"

I blocked the punch that she aimed for my midsection and swung for her head - and missed. We bounced apart and stared each other for a split second before having another go at it. She fell back on her supply of ordinary ninja stars almost immediately, or at least she tried to. So much for an honorable re-match. It was not that I had actually expected her to remain true to our deal, but I did think that she should have held out a little longer than that. I put a stop to her plans with a swift kick that knocked her hand away from the pouch in which she kept them. She back-flipped twice in order to get out of range, and to give herself a chance to regroup. "Shame on you, Sazura. I thought this was going to be a fair fight." I scolded, advancing slowly on her.

"Shut-up!" She snapped and launched herself in my direction once more. We tussled for a little while longer, both landing a few and missing quite often. Just as things were getting really heated, we heard sirens. Evidently we had made too much noise, or maybe the cops had just happened to catch on to the fact that this warehouse was not abandoned.

"Sazura! Come." The hooded figure called sharply, and she obeyed.

"This isn't over, Inuyasha!" She snarled just before disappearing into the shadows after her master.

Shippou walked over to me and handed me my gun. "Do you think that was altogether wise?"

"It was fun." I answered. "Besides, I wanted to see if she was all talk. I didn't notice anything different about her. I wonder why she kept saying that she was stronger?" We could see the blue and red lights flashing outside, and there was pounding on the door. "We should go. I think it's about time for us to get some shut-eye. What do you say?"

"Let's get out of here." By the time the police got the door open, Shippou and I were long gone, over the rooftops, of course.


	7. Chapter 6

This is the last chapter containing old material (save the first part, which is all-new). All the original stuff is here, but I just condensed things, and rewrote a few parts, like the end of this chapter. I did not keep good notes for this story like I do with my novels, so I honestly do not know what I was thinking when I had certain things happen in this chapter, or what I planned to do about it. All those present at the fight with Naraku in the beginning will make a reappearance, with the possible exception of Kikyou. I do not know what the original Rin-Sazura story was, but I have a new one that should work.

**A few notes**: Cherry blossom viewing (hanami) involves sitting under the cherry trees during the short time they blossom with your friends and getting drunk. Parks are packed as groups of families, friends, and co-workers go out to enjoy the blossoms together. A yukata is the summer version of a kimono. White Day is one of (three!) Japanese valentine's days, and falls around the time of hanami, so it fit right in.

I decided to have Kagome live in Shinjuku, because it would be near enough to downtown where there would be swank hotels like where Inuyasha is staying. She actually does live in a very urban area of Tokyo with tall buildings, so it seemed like it was doable.

Chapter 6

"Come on!" Kagome said excitedly, hefting her picnic basket carefully and glancing around her living room at the four men gathered around the table, blinking at her tiredly. Really, three men and a boy who was home "sick" from school. "If we don't hurry, all the good spots are going to be taken."

"Do we really have to go across town?" Souta complained.

"You're one to complain. Didn't I call your school and tell them you were deathly ill?"

"Isn't that payback for all the times I called for you?" He shot back. "You know, those few times that I snagged the phone before Grandpa and told the school you had something normal like the flu, the few times everyone in your middle school wasn't terrified to come near you when you finally made it back?"

Kagome looked at him in irritation, but did not dispute the claim. "Well-"

"Why can't we go to Shinjuku Gyoen? It's right down the street."

"Because, Souta, we have to pay to get into that park, and it doesn't open until nine anyway. We got up early enough to beat rush hour, but if we don't hurry, we'll get stuck smashed between the businessmen. Or you will. I'll be in the women-only car, thank you very much."

"If we went to Shinjuku Gyoen, we wouldn't need to beat rush hour." Her brother remarked darkly.

We were going cherry blossom viewing. It was the night after my little adventure in the warehouse with Shippou, Sazura, and her mysterious companion, and Shippou and I were trying desperately to remain awake. We had not told anyone about what we had seen. Kagome had sent a mail to my phone while I was arguing with Sazura, begging me and Shippou to come viewing with her and Souta the next morning. I had come, of course, but not without complaining. I was certainly not going to miss a virtual date with Kagome, but I was still myself.

Unfortunately, Kagome's idea of cherry blossom viewing evidently involved getting up early and going across town to Ueno. Kagome did not live that far from Shinjuku station, but no, we had to go somewhere else. She was right. We should get on the train before the businessmen beat us to it. If that happened, this trip would go from mildly unpleasant to really troublesome. I did not know what she had packed in the enormous basket she was carrying, but I was reasonably certain that I was going to end up carrying it before we had gotten very far. But at the moment, I was busy marveling at the fact that my brother had shown up at all.

Kagome was too. "Sesshoumaru, I'm surprised you're here. This doesn't seem like the sort of thing you'd enjoy."

"I haven't done this in a very long time." He answered. "And never in Tokyo. I look forward to the regional oddities you will no doubt produce."

"Did you bring enough sake?" Shippou asked, looking warily at her baggage. "We're going to need that, and I don't really like the idea of getting it at the nearest quick shop. I have refined tastes in my old age."

"Maybe we can find a decent sake shop in Shinjuku station when we get there." Kagome said with a shrug. "I've got a little, but probably not enough for everyone. We should go."

Kagome had invited the rest of her family to go as well, but her grandfather wanted to stay to watch over the shrine, and her mother had some shopping to do, whatever that meant. We took the bus to Shinjuku station, and I found it infinitely amusing to watch my refined older brother manage public transportation. He did it flawlessly, not that it was especially hard. There were seats available, but Kagome declined to sit with her brother, evidently preferring to stand in the aisle with me, her hand resting lightly on my arm for balance. Like a true man of Tokyo, Souta was asleep before the bus had even left his stop. When we got off the bus twenty minutes later, I was carrying Kagome's basket, and she was left with only the purse I had bought her during our shopping trip a few days before.

We stopped to pick up alcohol in the basement of Matsuzakaya, a high-end department store near Shinjuku station, before crowding onto the commuter trains and hurtling toward our station. There were already hundreds of people at the park when we arrived, but we managed to snag a nice place in the shade. It was still early spring, so the heat of the sun was not actually an issue, but the cherry blossoms only lasted a very short time. The plum blossoms, their immediate predecessor, were already beginning to wilt, though they were still beautiful.

No outing would really be complete unless we spent a significant amount of time plotting our next move against Sazura, but eventually I grew tired of it. Cherry blossom viewing was meant to help people appreciate life, or spring at least, not to plot ways to end it, even for other people. Plus, I wanted a chance to get away from the troubles that had plagued me since I had landed here only days before.

"Where are you going, Inuyasha?" Kagome demanded, jumping to her feet and trotting after me.

"I don't know. Want to come?" I offered my free hand and she took it. I had a bag in the other, and though she looked curiously at it, she did not ask. I was sort of disappointed, because it was for her.

"There's a shrine near here." She said after a few moments. The park was starting to get more and more crowded. "Tokugawa's."

"He pops up everywhere, doesn't he?" I answered, glancing around. I could see it in the distance. "Do you want to go?"

"Yes." She answered, squeezing my hand. I wondered if she really wanted to go, or if it was that the distance between the shrine and where our friends sat would guarantee that we would be comparatively alone for a long time. I did not care which reason it was.

"What did you do?" I asked her abruptly after we had walked in silence for a few minutes, and she glanced toward me in surprise and confusion. "After I was gone, I mean." I looked away even as I asked.

She was silent so long that I almost wondered if she had even heard me. "I came back." She answered, her voice quiet. "I went to school. I got into a good high school, and even into Tokyo University. I did what a good shrine daughter does."

"Oh."

"And I missed you terribly the whole time." She added in a soft voice. "I tried dating a few times," I looked away, the old jealousies rising suddenly in my chest, making my breath quicker than it had been, "but I was never happy." She finished. "It's sort of hard to go from a boyfriend who kills demons with his bare hands to a boy that does really well on his math tests, no matter how cute he is, or how good his English, or how sexy his French."

We were halfway to the shrine now. "I speak both, well. Really well." I muttered darkly. I am not very good at math though.

"What about you?" The shrine was close enough to see clearly now. "What was it like, living all that time, not knowing who you really were?"

"Confusing." I answered simply. "But Miroku and Sango were around long enough for me to get my bearings, and to build enough of a past to work from."

"Sango." Kagome said in a distant, sad voice. "Was she-"

"Were they." I corrected. "Were they happy? Yes, disgustingly so. Don't worry, Miroku got the heir he was always after, and plenty extras. We were never lonely, that's for sure. Those kids never stopped crawling all over me – or by the time they did, the second generation took over for them."

Kagome sighed in relief. "I'm so glad. We all went through hell. They deserved it." Her voice caught suddenly, and I looked at her quickly. Her tears had never been something that I had been able to abide easily.

"Here." I shoved the bag in my other hand in her face. It made the perfect distraction. "I got you this."

"This?" She took it uncertainly, freeing her hand from mine to look inside. "What is it?"

"A present. White Day's coming up, isn't it?" She looked at me in surprise. "I had a minute to snag it at the station. I think it was while Sesshoumaru and Shippou were showing off their sake expertise at the shop. You do like white chocolate, right?"

"Of course I do!" She stopped and stood on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. "Thank you, Inuyasha – I mean, Hideko."

"I got this too, the other day. Yesterday." I shoved the jewelry box in her face in the same manner I had given her the bag.

Like the big-city girl she was, she instantly recognized the signature teal box, neatly tied with a white ribbon. "Tiffany's? It's Tiffany's isn't it?" She squealed.

I nodded, unsurprised by her reaction. "It didn't match your dress, so I kept it, until now." She carefully unwrapped the box and drew out the famous charm bracelet. I had sprung for the gold version, and several charms, while she had been engaged with a clerk I had sent her way just for that purpose.

"Oh Hideko!" She looked at me with shining eyes, but somehow, it was not exactly the present that had made her so happy. "Thank you. It's so beautiful. But isn't it expensive?" I gave her a long look, and she suddenly laughed uproariously. "It's going to take a while to get used to that! But I didn't even get you anything. You shouldn't have spent so much on me."

"Did you cry when you thought I was dead?"

She blinked at me. "Well, yes."

"Then I haven't spent enough."

We had reached the shrine, and we bought the tickets necessary to go into the inner sanctum. Unsurprisingly, there were a few food stands inside, taking advantage of the increased patronage the blossoms brought, and we scored some candied apples. Inside the shrine, Kagome suddenly stopped, looking about.

"Does it give you a jolt?"

"What?"

"These old buildings? They're so old, but they might not have even been around back in the days I rode around on your back. It used to hit me every once in a while when I went to a place like this, back when I went through the well all the time." I glanced around. Since my "death" and the loss of my memories, I had living through time the normal, long way, and had watched civilization develop gradually. I had never really thought about the fact that I had seen these buildings, or at least their contemporaries, when they were new. "Does it make you feel more at home?" She asked in a soft voice. "Or homesick?"

I looked into her face for a long moment, and around at the ancient, refurbished buildings that commemorated the life of Japan's first shogun. Then I drew my arm around her waist. "Right now, I feel more at home than I have in centuries." I was not talking about the buildings.

When we returned, the idiots were drunk. Even Souta was sloshed, even though he was way below the drinking age, but then, it was not as if Japan ever checked I.D. "Who gave my brother alcohol?" Kagome demanded in consternation.

"Oh, come on." Shippou shrugged. "He had to have it sometime. He's fine, we cut him off."

"Not soon enough." I said dryly. "Luckily, we've got time for him to sober up."

My brother was sitting with his back against a tree, watching the passerby with a negligent eye. "Fireworks tonight." He said dully. "Are we staying for them?"

Kagome clapped her hands together, kneeling suddenly on the blanket and seeming to have completely forgotten her brother's questionable condition. "Of course! We should! Unless you important businessmen have something you should be doing?"

"Well, before you announced your desire to come cherry blossom viewing, I was going to shop for furniture for my new apartment." I said, plopping down beside her. "Oh, and actually buy the place. I should do that first, I guess. But it can wait until tomorrow."

Sesshoumaru nodded slowly. "Yes. My responsibilities can wait. It's been a long time since I was last cherry blossom viewing." He paused for a moment, someone passing by catching his attention, and I turned to look. I saw a young girl in a yellow yukata that tugged at the edges of my memory. Not my normal memories, but the ones I had recently regained, those of long ago. In my mind, I saw a little girl much like the one prancing by, innocent and pretty, who clung to the billowing pants my brother favored in those days, clung to him for protection, her eyes filled with love and trust. "A very long time." Sesshoumaru finished quietly.

Several days passed without incident. Shippou and I decided not to mention our late night adventure to anyone, not even Kagome. I did not wish to tell her because she would worry, but I could not claim to know Shippou's motives. Our escapade had not amounted to much. It was hardly worth mentioning. Even though we discovered that Sazura was indeed in cahoots with someone, we still didn't have any clue who it was, or even what he was. As such, I did not want Kagome or anyone else to worry over it until we knew something more concrete. Shippou had thought that we should tell everyone, but had finally agreed to keep his mouth shut. I suspected that he still remembered all the times in the old days that I used to pound him when he didn't agree with me. Perhaps that was why he said nothing.

But just because we did not say anything to anyone else did not mean that we did not spend a lot of time considering it on our own. I for one found myself spending a lot of time pondering what they might be up to. It didn't altogether surprise me that whatever Sazura and her master were planning involved the Shikon no Tama, since its power, mystical and actual, guaranteed that it would be coveted by every demon in the business.

"You're thinking about it again, aren't you?" Shippou asked in a low voice. We were at my apartment, where Shippou was staying. Luckily, I'd thought to get a two bedroom, just in case. Like me, he was considering getting a place of his own if we were going to be here for much longer. Money was no more and object for him than it was for me, so the only reason he had not done it already was because of the annoyance involved in finding a good flat. He seemed to like my building though.

I glanced behind me furtively before answering, "Yes, I am." Kagome had stopped by after her classes, accompanied by the large stack of books that were very familiar to a seasoned university man like me. I was looking at them jealously, actually. Japanese books were so much smaller and thinner than the ones I had been forced to lug around last time I went to college. She currently in the kitchen getting us some tea and her some snacks from the freshly stocked kitchen. I was not worried about her having any trouble, since she'd been the one to stock it in the first place. I maintained that I had only been brought along to the store in order to provide the money and to carry all the heavy things. She could be clearly heard humming to herself in there, which was why we were keeping our voices low.

"Anything in particular on your mind?"

"How did he know?" I muttered aloud angrily, mostly to myself, "It's been bugging me ever since we eavesdropped on their conversation. How could he possibly know all that stuff about our quest? It was five hundred years ago! No one knows about it anymore. I know! I spent years and years trying to figure it out for myself, and I started less than a year after it all started! Half of the things he said aren't documented anywhere, I know thatf for certain."

Shippou shrugged unconcernedly. "I don't know. Maybe he's older than you think."

I sighed, slumping forward and leaning on my elbow. "That's the other thing. I mean, if we just knew what he was – or even if he is a he, that would be something." I glanced back at the kitchen. Kagome was still humming merrily away. Although I was pretty sure she was not about to come in, I shifted back to my half-blood form all the same. She would not be sneaking up on me today.

"Do you have to do that all the time?" Shippou demanded in disgust. "It's so weird. Do you have any idea how complicated the spells most demons use to hide their - supernatural attributes are? And here you throw it all back into their faces by handling it with a mere thought."

"Oh, shut up." I answered lazily, rolling my eyes. "You're a fox, so you don't have any room to talk. Don't think I'm not aware of how easy it is for you to change, so I don't wanna hear about it."

Shippou shrugged, "Yeah, yeah. It's still weird to see you change like that. I mean, even when you used to go human in the old days, at least there was a transition involved. When you do it now, you just change. It ain't right." He broke off when Kagome came back in the room, carrying the teapot. Sitting down, or kneeling rather, across the table from me, she calmly set everything out. There was not any reaction to my deciding to go half-demon.

There rarely was. It was as if she did not care, and I sincerely hoped that it was just my physical appearance that failed to move her. After all, she really had taken my whole reappearance in stride. I still was not full master of my memories, but every once in a while when I saw her I was hit with the crushing sense of loss that I had felt when I had woken from the dead and realized she was beyond my reach.

She was a lot better at juggling the dishes than I remembered. Once she was finished, she reached to the side and picked up a book, paging through it.

"Homework?" I asked, eating one of the cakes that she'd brought out. They were cherry flavored, to fit the season.

"Not exactly. I'm on spring break now. This is a special project."

"Do you have lots of homework normally?" I asked curiously. Her university was a top tier one, but I did not know exactly what that entailed these days, especially not here.

"Yes. Not that you'd know." She answered, pulling out a folder and glancing through what looked like her syllabus.

"Hey. I was an Oxford man." She gave me a blank look. "It wasn't really that long ago, either."

"An English college? Why'd you go there?" Shippou asked. "I mean, I realize that you're fluent and everything, but still."

"It's too competitive here, and too much is based on tests, and where you went to high school." I answered with another shrug. "I can fake the records, but sometimes it's too much effort. Getting in is much easier in places where it's more common to be a 'non-traditional student', especially when you don't have any records. I just pretend I'm homeschooled." I paused, eying Kagome carefully. "Besides, I like western colleges better, more discussion, less rote memorization, fewer students falling asleep in class." She glanced briefly at me and shrugged.

"At least if they're sleeping they're not talking or playing on their phones."

"But isn't Oxford like, insanely competitive?" Shippou asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, it is a little." He looked at me like I was at least two parts insane and one part illogical. "Yes, I do know that I managed to create an impressive irony with that decision. I was seduced by the name, all right?" I looked across at Kagome, who was looking at me with a raised eyebrow. "What are you studying, anyway?"

She looked down at the book that she had been paging through. "This was from one of my religions classes, last semester, a history class, actually. For some unknown reason, I find myself drawn to that sort of thing." I rolled my eyes and looked out the window. I did not remember her being so sarcastic. That had always been more my thing.

"I have a question." Shippou said finally. "Didn't you say before, a few days ago, that you thought that there was some connection between Naraku and something at the pits?" I glanced quickly at him, but I saw that he didn't intend to say anything about our strange adventure just yet.

"Yeah." She answered distractedly. "It was down where the top secret ones were kept, or whatever. That's what I'm trying to research, but there isn't any material to look at, not really." She turned a page, evidently engrossed.

"Do you think you could elaborate on that?" He asked.

She glanced up and sighed. Shutting the book, she put her elbow on it and thought for a moment. "Well, it wasn't that I sensed Naraku himself. It's more like – well, look: we learned way back when that Onigumo had been sort of possessed by demons to become Naraku. Since he first of all was willing, and second got a whole new body out of it, it obviously wasn't your garden variety possession. As far as I could ever tell, Naraku was unique, especially in that he was sort of like a half-demon because of his origin as a human, but then again he was not anything like one at all. Once we defeated him though, I stopped thinking about it until the other night."

"I was thinking back to this class, and I remembered seeing a couple of things that reminded me of Naraku, in a way. Since this stuff's so old, we looked at stories at lot. In a lot of stories-" she broke off and glared at me. "What?"

"Stories, Kagome? This is real life."

"Bear with me here." She said impatiently, waving at me impatiently. "In a lot of stories, there is a fight against an evil that is sort of ultimate and elemental, but not quite human. Sometimes, there are multiple confrontations over the centuries. Stories are imitations of reality, Inuyasha, and I shouldn't have to tell you that our own reality is only a story to everyone else."

"Ok." I said slowly, not wanting to make her mad. "So?"

"I think that the concept of an ultimate evil pops up too much for it not to exist in reality, in some way, and if so, that might be what we're dealing with. Maybe it's possessed someone else, or maybe it's possessed these stolen demons and that's what is keeping them under control."

"Sazura wasn't possessed." I pointed out, deciding for a moment to ignore the greater ludicrousness of her argument. Then again, maybe it was not so strange. After all, when we had followed Sazura the other night, the mysterious figure had reminded me a lot of Naraku for some reason. Maybe the years had made me cynical. In the old days, I never used to question things like how human Onigumo had become whatever Naraku was, and how the sacred jewel that was burned with Kikyou could come to be _inside_ Kagome, reincarnation or no. Maybe I should try to be more open minded. Our situations were so rarely normal, after all.

"Obviously, Inuyasha. It was the person who released her who was possessed."

"It might explain how a human like Onigumo came to be so powerful." Shippou pointed out thoughtfully. "Don't forget how he was always able to kill anyone – no matter how incredibly powerful. Even those minions that he made from himself, you know, Kagura and the rest, were really strong. Sure, we always knew that the reason Naraku was so strong was because the evil Onigumo had allowed himself to be possessed by demons, but if you stop and think about it, you realize that they must have been _some_ demons. Most are not so strong."

"I guess you're right." I allowed. "And if you end up being correct about this possession thing, Kagome, we've got a hell of a task in front of us. After all, we barely managed it before, and now we don't have as many allies. Sango, Miroku, and Kohaku are gone, and I haven't seen Kouga in ages." I shook my head and continued on, trying not to linger too long on the memories of my lost friends, "Beyond that, why does this theoretically ancient evil guy want the jewel? I mean I realize that it is powerful, but would its power be really that incredible to something that strong? I mean Sesshoumaru never wanted it partly because it wouldn't really do that much for him, or so he claimed at the time."

Kagome shrugged. "It's just an idea. Maybe whoever was behind it just decided to release all the demons just to create havoc? We've just been through a lot – maybe we're just seeing elaborate conspiracies out of habit." Shippou looked at each other significantly as Kagome opened the book again. We'd seen the ringleader, or so to speak. He certainly existed, that much we were sure of. "Then again," she went on, "that certainly wouldn't explain why no one has seen these demons but us."

We all fell silent, thinking. I was going over the facts of the case again when the Sesshoumaru question occurred to me. "Kagome, I've been meaning to ask you."

"What?"

"Why was Sesshoumaru helping you defend the shrine? Before all this happened, I mean. I got the idea you two had been working together for a while. What did he say when you first met up in this time?"

Kagome thought for several moments. "Well, he didn't say much, you know him. He certainly didn't give me a straight explanation as to why he wanted to help me out, or protect the jewel. Somehow I don't really think it was out of some family responsibility – I don't think he was doing it in your stead or anything." I nodded. No way that would ever happen. "But he'd changed, like he said. He's not the type to seek atonement for past ills. But maybe it was something like that."

"Not to atone for the stuff he did back then." Shippou shook his head. "Great Sesshoumaru doesn't do anything he regrets ever, or at least that he'll admit he regrets. But maybe it was in some odd way out of the kindness of his heart."

I laughed out loud at that concept, but I understood what he meant. Maybe he was even right. He certainly seemed dedicated to the protection of the shrine, and I could not come up with any reason he should feel that way. Kagome went back to reading her book until all of a sudden she sat up straight, looking suddenly freaked out. "What's wrong?" I demanded, almost leaping to my feet, thinking that maybe she sensed something.

"I forgot! I'm supposed to meet my friends at the bar!" She dug through her purse for her phone frantically. "Ah! Seven emails? There going to kill me!" She hastily threw her books into her bag, or at least the ones that fit anyway. "I've got to go! I'll call you guys later!" She told us before running out the door before I even had the chance to get up to walk her downstairs. I was suddenly reminded of a younger, but not much different Kagome.

"She really never did get a handle on all of her responsibilities, did she?" Shippou drawled with a chuckle as she slammed the door behind her.

Much later, Shippou and I were sitting on the floor of my living room, watching some late night TV and eating potato chips. I had always had a thing for them. Kagome used to bring them back for me in the old days. We had skipped over the terrible programs Japan calls entertainment until we had located one of those old black and white movies. I had reverted to my human form soon after Kagome's abrupt departure in case anyone came to the door unexpectedly. I did not always remember the form I was in, and the last thing I wanted to do was answer the door with fluffy ears and golden eyes.

"Ah," I sighed, falling onto my back from my sitting position, my knees sticking up in the air for a moment before I let them fall to the ground as well. The sounds of Tokyo being destroyed filled the darkened room. "I almost wish we could forget that Tokyo really is in danger for once. It's nice to kick back and relax every once and a while."

"Do you ever work?" Shippou asked icily, rolling his eyes at me. He was already lying on the floor, absently stuffing chips in his mouth.

"Not if I can help it." I replied cheerfully. I frowned, remembering something, and sat quickly up and glancing around, my legs spread out on the floor in front of me. "I _was_ thinking that maybe I'll go down to the pits this week and offer to fight."

"Why? I thought that you didn't have to do that anymore." Shippou pointed out. "Besides, who are you gonna fight?"

"I don't. But I'm kinda bored, and it would be for old time's sake. If we're going to be fighting demons a lot, I need to increase my endurance. I could use the exercise, even if the fight itself is going to be a sham, seeing as they're fresh out of demons and all." I glanced over at Shippou and grinned. "Besides, they always pay me a lot of money, if only for the publicity my appearance tends to bring. It might lend the veneer of respectability to their illusions if someone real like me is part of them."

"You don't need the money, Inuyasha. Especially their money."

"You're always such a stick in the mud-" I began, but the rest of my reply was cut off by the ringing of my cell phone. I dug it out of my pocket and flipped it open, making a face at the obnoxious object, mostly because the volume had somehow gotten turned way up again.

"Hello?" I was fairly sure that the number was Kagome's, but I did not want to sound like an idiot in case it was someone else.

"Inuyasha?" I heard a familiar boyish voice ask frantically. "Is that you?"

"Souta?" I demanded, jumping to my feet. Shippou looked quickly at me from the floor. He could probably hear the conversation from where he was sitting as well as I could, and I guessed that he thought something was wrong too, because he sat up, tensing. "What's up?"

"Kagome told me to call you! Those demons things are attacking the shrine again, but this time there's a lot of them, and I think that she's afraid that she won't be able to handle them all. You have to help her!"

"I'm on my way!" I told him, and shut the phone with a snap. Shoving it back in my pocket, I whirled and looked for Shippou, but he wasn't where he'd been a moment ago.

"Over here, brilliant." He said, holding Tetsusaiga out to me. "Let's go."

Glad that I was dressed in a sweat-suit for once and didn't have to take the time to change into something I could actually move in, I grabbed my sword and we ran out the door. I tried to strap the sword belt around my waist as we went, and felt the weight of the gun bouncing against my chest from where I had stashed it. Since the shrine was only ten blocks away, we automatically decided to take it at a dead run, rather than bothering to call a taxi. Several blocks away we began to hear the sounds of battle. I scaled the long flight of stairs leading to the shrine in several bounds.

"Kagome!" I yelled once we were at the top. She was surrounded by a ring of light that I instantly recognized as a barrier, dressed in yellow ducky pajamas, no less. Another protected the house. That was the first thing that was strange. There was no reason the demons should go for the house when the bearer of the sacred jewel was standing right in front of them. Someone must be synchronizing their movements. Kagome herself was under the assault of five more demons.

"Inuyasha!" She called in relief, "Shippou!"

"Get down!" I yelled, drawing out my gun and clicking off the safety in one smooth motion and firing. In the blink of an eye, two of the demon's surrounding her were dead, and she was lying on the ground covering her head. My demons-grade bullets sure did pack a punch. At the sound of the gunshots, the three demons trying to break down the barrier protecting the house turned away from their pointless endeavor in favor of attacking me. Souta, who was visible in the window, breathed a sigh of relief, but continued to watch the proceedings with rapt attention. He was holding a practice sword in his hand, but seemed doubtful of either its effectiveness as a weapon or his ability to use it.

Following along with a long tradition of mine, I leapt into the fray, drawing Tetsusaiga and picturing my once-more familiar form in my mind. "Kaze no Kizu!" I yelled triumphantly – and nothing happened. I looked at my still untransformed blade in total confusion, and out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of my hair, still black as the night had been in the days when Kagome and I traveled beneath the stars, before the lights of Tokyo had appeared to destroy their beauty. I had not transformed.

"Watch out, Inuyasha!" Kagome yelled, and I looked up just in time to see the centipede demon getting ready to strike. I acted first, and bounded out of range, knowing that an ancient blade like Tetsusaiga untransformed would do nothing but bounce off the demon's thick hide. Shippou, meanwhile, saved the day with his well-loved multiply trick, and brought the fight to my attackers with eight versions of himself, all wielding his now effective fox fire attack. Things had certainly changed from the old days. Shippou could actually defend himself now.

"What's wrong?" Kagome yelled as she shot another one of her arrows. I could see that the strength of her arrows was steadily diminishing. That was going to be a problem very quickly. Of course, it was still more than enough to make the centipede stop its attack on me for good. It must have somehow gotten through Shippou's guard. Where was my brother?

"I don't know!" I shouted back at her, pulling my gun back out and finishing it off. "I can't transform!"

Kagome loosed yet another bolt and looked up at the sky. "Oh, no! Inuyasha, it's the new moon! You're human tonight!" She looked scared. "What are we going to do?"

"Fight, obviously." I yelled back indignantly. "I've lasted this long as a human. A couple of demons like this aren't going to kill me just because I can't become a half-demon." I dodged out of the way of the centipede's replacement, which appeared to be of the lizard variety. Annoying, but not really that dangerous to someone who knew what they were doing. "I worked as a demon slayer for almost a century, and as a human to boot. But it would help if I had a weapon."

"Souta!" She called, whirling toward the house. "Grandpa!" The old man's head popped up next to his grandson's in the window. "Get that katana that we found in the storage room! Hurry!" Souta nodded and quickly disappeared.

In the meantime, I had to figure out what I was going to do without a working weapon. The shrine was under attack by an unending number of demons. There were only about eight at a time, but a new one appeared each time we dispatched one. I could not spare the time or energy at the moment to figure out that mystery, not until I had some means by which to protect myself.

"C'mon, Inuyasha!" I muttered to myself, narrowing my eyes at a praying mantis demon. I rolled out of the way as it tried to split me in half with a downward swipe of one of its spiky front legs. My memories from those early days working as the familiar face of Japan's greatest female demon slayer suddenly rose very clearly in my mind, and I smirked.

Taking the opportunity provided by the mantis's failed attack, I ran up its leg and seated myself behind its head. I wasn't up here for sport, or even safety. "You really shouldn't screw with demon slayers." I told it. "They know all sorts of dangerous things." This particular type of demon's thick armor was weak where its head met its neck. Although Tetsusaiga wasn't exactly useful in its current state, it still made a top grade poking stick. I had used it for that very purpose to get Sesshoumaru to stop chomping on my liver, long, long, ago.

I drew my battered sword and plunged it down, deep in to the soft area, then fled back down the way I'd come, before it could return the favor. I leapt clear as it toppled slowly to the ground, and took stock of the situation, Tetsusaiga still in my hand. I jumped quickly to the side, narrowly avoiding a grasping tentacle belonging to demons of the mollusk breed. It was too far from the ocean to be very effective.

"You're next on my list." I growled.

But the distraction cost me. Most likely I had somehow allowed myself to become soft in these peaceful times. However, my senses still didn't fail me, and I wheeled around in time to block the downward strike from the other mantis demon. I had saved my own life, but at great cost. The strain was too great for the ancient, worn katana, and it cracked three quarters of the way down the blade. My eyes bugged open in shock, and my jaw dropped. "Tetsusaiga…" I whispered.

"Move it Inuyasha!" Shippou yelled, barreling into me with his smaller body, knocking me aside. I staggered several steps to the side, lost my balance, and fell on my butt. I stared up at the battle that raged only a few feet from me, not really part of it anymore. I knew I was in danger, but I could not help it. My Tetsusaiga, the only constant companion through the long, long years of my life, was broken. Miroku had warned me never to let anything happen to it, and of course I had gone and done just that.

"Dammit, Inuyasha," I distantly heard Shippou yell in my direction. "Pull yourself together and pay attention! Souta has something for you." Souta was standing just on the other side of the barrier that protected him and the rest of Kagome's family, holding a sheathed sword. I numbly made my way over there and took the sword, handing him my cracked blade through the small hole Kagome made in the barrier. Slowly I turned, drew the sword and dropped the scabbard on the ground. Then, without further ceremony, I threw myself back into the heat of battle, my thoughts burning with the desire for revenge, almost as if I were avenging a lost comrade. Which in a way, I was.

I went first for the mollusk demon that had inadvertently been responsible for the cracking of my father's sword. I charged toward it like an idiot, then, at the last possible moment, I vaulted up and over it, drawing a long cut down the middle of its back as I landed on the other side. Laughing manically, I continued the carnage, feeling oddly like my old self. But perhaps someone should have reminded me that a human body is not as strong as a demon one, even one only half.

A few minutes later, the demons suddenly broke ranks and fled. I had been in the process of jumping towards the god tree with the intent of using its trunk as a means of propelling myself forcibly back on my current opponent. Just before I landed I saw them begin to run, so when my feet touched the bark, I grabbed a nearby branch and hung onto it, watching the quickly vacated courtyard with narrowed eyes, bracing myself against the tree with my feet in preparation to react quickly once I had figured out what was going on.

Kagome breathed a sigh of relief once they were all gone and let the barriers fall, although she still kept a watchful eye. And it was right that she did so. She sensed the incoming demoness almost before I did, and quickly drew her bow, ready to point it at the next challenger when she made her appearance.

"Well, well, well." I winced, recognizing the voice. I'd heard it all too often during the past week. I bent my knees, gripping the bark with my toes. Narrowing my eyes, I tried to figure out from which direction she was going to come from. "Those demons weren't really effective were they? You constantly surprise me." Sazura phased into view halfway across the courtyard from Kagome, who narrowed her eyes but refrained from shooting just yet.

"Who are you?" She demanded.

Sazura ignored her. "Still, they did manage to wear you down, priestess. You aren't nearly strong enough now to provide any sort of contest to me. Why don't you just hand over the Jewel of the Four Souls, and I won't kill you." She paused with a evil little smile, "Well, at least not yet anyway."

"No." Kagome answered. Sazura scowled and reached back to pull that insane ninja star of hers off her back.

"Don't even think about it, Sazura." I growled, and she looked quickly toward the god tree in surprise. I pushed off the trunk of the tree that I had once been sealed to for fifty years and sailed toward the gap between Sazura and Kagome. Somersaulting once, I landed about ten feet away from her, with Kagome behind me. "Stay away from her." I went on in a tone of warning, pointing my katana at her.

"Inuyasha?" Sazura gasped in surprise. "Well, don't you just keep popping up everywhere? What's your relation to this? I didn't realize you were so personally involved in the protection of the jewel we were discussing so intimately the other night."

"Well, you should have. Leave this shrine, Sazura."

"What are you going to do?" She asked playfully. "Poke me with your little sword?"

"Maybe you've forgotten, but the last couple times that you and I fought, you didn't come out so well." I pointed out icily. "You should leave while you're ahead."

"Not without the jewel." She answered stubbornly. "Besides, why do you care? Is it just because it's me who wants it, or what?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I am the guardian spirit of this shrine, and am bound to protect it and the sacred jewel that it shelters." She raised a delicate eyebrow doubtfully. "I've asked you before, and I will have an answer from you. Why do you seek the Jewel of the Four Souls? It is cursed."

She shrugged. "It;s not my idea." She started advancing, her eyes trained on Kagome, who raised her bow once more. But before she shot her arrow, I got in the way again. Kagome was weakened, and I did not want her to have to waste a shot she did not have to.

"Don't take another step, Sazura." I warned, tightening my grip on the katana in determination. "If you want to get to the holder of the jewel, then you're going to have to get through me."

"Inuyasha, don't!" Kagome pleaded with me, "You're human!"

Sazura frowned at this statement, and looked over me at Kagome with a slightly perplexed expression. "So?"

"Miss Kagome," I began, adding the uncustomary title to her name in an effort to disguise our personal relationship from Sazura, as well as trying to warn her to do the same. Somehow it did not seem like a good idea for Sazura to find out about my other identity, such as it was, although I could not say why it was that I felt that way. I also did not want to give her any sort of edge over either of us. "Don't worry. Sazura and I have fought many times before."

I heard a small "eep" from behind me, but whether it was Kagome's response to the unfamiliar form of address or my blunt statement of intentions and ability, I was not sure. I was really hoping that she got the point and did not reveal anything else by accident.

"Well?" I turned back to Sazura. I had never really taken my eyes off her, but I had turned away slightly when I was talking to Kagome. I locked eyes with her once more. "I thought that your new master had warned you strongly against attacking the shrine and it's priestess. Whatever happened to that? And whatever happened to you, Sazura? I remember a time when you would bow to no one."

"Shut-up Inuyasha!" Sazura snapped, suddenly angry, reaching quickly into her pocket and tossing three of her ever present ninja stars angrily at me. Ninja stars have never really been more than an annoyance, but I jumped out of the way just in case they were poisoned. It almost never hurts to be careful.

I somersaulted easily out of the way and landed neatly a few feet to the side. "So I see that you still fancy yourself a ninja." I said conversationally, "I don't really understand it. That self-satisfied attitude of yours is all wrong." She snarled angrily in response, and I laughed. "So Sazura, what's it gonna be? Are you going to risk going against your master's wishes and attack the shrine, its priestess and guardian spirit all at once, or are you going to leave peacefully?"

"I will have that jewel!" She snarled, reaching back for her main weapon. "You cannot stop me, Inuyasha!"

"That's what you think." I snarled in return, waiting for her to attack. Gone were the days when my anger drove me to constantly be on the offense. If there was one thing that I had learned over the years, it was that it was best to force my attacker to fight on my terms. My human body could not take the stress, for one thing, so even if I had not lost my memory, I would have been forced to learn to fight all over again anyway. It did not take her very long. Demons never do learn from their mistakes like humans do.

With her familiar cry, she jumped toward me, her giant star held high. Since it was a long range weapon, it would have been smarter to hang back and allow it to do the work, but Sazura liked to use more brute strength than finesse. It didn't make any difference to me – if anything, her short range attack made things much easier for me. I blocked quickly with the borrowed katana and nearly laid her out with a well-placed punch before she bounced back. Although I had not hit her squarely, I did not miss her completely either, and was pleased to see that she was rubbing her shoulder with a scowl.

"You always did fight dirty." She accused.

I laughed. "Me? Remind me again who it was that cheated during our last match?"

She snorted, and attacked me once again. I blocked her strike once more, though only just in time. Instead of hitting her again as she expected, I pushed her back violently, and sent her flying into the darkness surrounding us. Although I did not have as much power now as I did in my natural form, it was still impressive.

At that moment, as I waited for her to recover, I realized that I really ought to be more careful. There had been a time when all the fighting that I'd done tonight wouldn't have fazed me, but that was in a much more wild time. Although I would never truly allow myself to get out of shape, in these peaceful times I no longer had the endurance I'd had during the middle ages. It would be best to finish this fight as quickly as possible, to avoid tiring myself too much and risk making a mistake.

Sazura's next attack involved actually using her weapon as it had been intended. I watched it hurtle toward me, and somersaulted up and over it. Landing in front of a shocked looking Sazura, I slashed her quickly across the chest before back-flipping out of range once more as the shuriken returned. This remarkable timing was mostly a result of the training I had done very early on with Sango's enormous weapon, which had operated almost exactly the same way.

I had not really meant to rip her dress the way I had, but in retrospect, it was kind of funny, watching her attempt to keep certain attributes from making a surprise appearance. "Damn you, Inuyasha!" She snarled at me, and I really could not help laughing. I have a slight sadistic streak that shows up every once and a while.

"Does this mean that you're going to leave?" I asked hopefully.

"Never!" She jumped at me again, evidently having decided that the risk of flashing everyone in the courtyard took backseat to the desire to kill me. I fended her off with a little effort that involved bracing myself against the ground and pushing violently up. I was suddenly painfully aware that I had better end this fight soon, or suffer the consequences. My muscles, particularly those in my legs, were beginning to weaken. But maybe Kagome would recharge in the intervening period and be able to help me out. But she was trying to keep the barrier up to protect her family, so the likelihood of her power quickly recharging was not strong.

Speaking of barriers, I heard Souta gasp to my left, and a following frustrated sound from Kagome. "Kagome!" Souta said worriedly. Glancing to the side quickly, I discerned that the barrier was faltering, although Kagome was attempting at that moment to make it seem otherwise. She was hanging on to the jewel, perhaps in an attempt to coax a power boost out of it. I returned my attention to the fight, only to discover that the slight disruption had caused me to suddenly be on the defense in this epic battle.

I managed to leap out of the way of the fierce attack Sazura was launching, and the sharp clang of steel on the concrete I had been standing on a split second before was unnerving. My legs also screamed in their own way against any more of this behavior, but I did not have the time to pay attention. They, however, had other ideas, and when Sazura quickly regrouped from her failed attack, I didn't. Thus, when she flew toward me again, I wasn't able to jump out of the way any longer.

I could still block, however, and did so, stopping the advance of the shuriken, and dodged the punch she threw at me without breaking the block. But then Sazura did something I did not expect. She swung the arm holding the shuriken upwards suddenly, still locked with my katana. Then, before I could even figure out what she was doing (as such an action put her in danger of cutting her own wrist with the blades of her shuriken), she pulled it away, and kicked my wrist hard enough to numb it – and make my hand release what it was holding.

Time seemed to slow down as I watched my borrowed katana spin out of sight, into the darkness. Dimly, I heard it embed itself in the ground somewhere far out of reach. The shrine was completely silent. The barrier had fallen completely, not because Kagome was out of power, but because she was in shock. Even Sazura seemed dumbfounded by this stroke of luck. She did not stay that way for long, however.

"Well, well, well." She said with a smirk, raising her shuriken once more. "Looks like you're all out of tricks, Inuyasha. So this is good-bye! Hiyah!" She jumped toward me.

I was not even able to dodge out of the way. My legs were completely shot. Maybe this was all because the unexpected loss of my father's sword had thrown me off. Or maybe my human form had somehow gotten softer since I had regained my real identity. I could just be tired. It didn't matter now. I knew before the blow landed that it would kill me.

The sharpened spike of her giant spiked star sliced easily through my unprotected chest, and ruptured my heart and several other vital organs. Blood spurted in the wake of the blade and drenched my clothing. "You-" I tried, but was cut off when my mouth filled with blood. Over my shoulder, an arrow whizzed by, framed in the pink light of spirit energy and accompanied by a bloodcurdling scream. Sazura caught it easily. Kagome was too weak after her long battle to fight properly. I attempted to call her name, to tell her to run away, but I could not. I could not speak. I could not do anything.

Instead, I heard her familiar footsteps run toward me instead of away, to safety, as I wished. Thought was running away from me, or with me. Before Kagome reached me

I fell

slowly

surreally

to the ground

and dreamed

of the past

and heard

Sango's voice.

"Inuyasha!" that achingly familiar voice screamed, and it sounded so real, so close, but I knew even in my death throes that it was not Kagome but someone who I had not heard in so long and I did not understand how it could be but could not ask because my voice did not work was I in shock maybe I was going to die and Kagome would cry because she loved me even though I did not deserve it not after all of what I had put her through. And everything was dark and I was not sure if it was just the sky at night without the moon because it was the first day and I was human and that was why I was dying, or if I was back where Kikyou had talked to me after I killed myself with the sacred cursed jewel and it was Kikyou and not Kagome who was crying and holding me, but it did not sound like Kikyou at all but Kagome – and everything was suddenly so confusing it was not like this before, was it?

But if it was Sango then I must be dying because she was dead too, she been dead so long, only then the girl with me could not be Kagome because she lived, but I knew in my broken heart that it was her even though she was alive and Sango was long dead. Kagome ducked suddenly over me and there was a wind over us I had not felt ever except with Sango and I was going to wonder how– but then Kagome, my Kagome grabbed my hand and started begging me not to die, so then I realized that I was only dying and not dead yet, and maybe that was why all my thoughts were running together like this. Then there was rain, no it was tears, falling, because rain was not usually warm like this and it was not salty either, she was telling me I was all right even though even I knew I was not and I was barely able to think at all. I was going to try to think properly and tell Kagome the truth, but then I was sure I heard Miroku yelling something about those sacred seals of his, and Sazura yelling too and was distracted because how could all these dead people be here with people who were alive like me only I was dying but I could still hear.

"Sango!" Kagome was yelling in surprise and she sounded shocked, but then she looked at me and decided that I was more important. "Inuyasha, we have to take you to the hospital. Shippou!"

"Yeah?" He paused and said reluctantly, "Kagome, it would be faster for me to take him, but we can't move him. Some things might fall out that he needs. I'll call-"

"Shippou!"

I heard his footstep go away which was odd, because usually you could not hear him at all. But there were more important things because suddenly I realized that my lungs were working again and so was my voice and I had to "Kagome," I had to tell her something "I-"

"Hush, Inuyasha, it's going to be okay." Was she convincing herself or me because it sounded like we both needed convincing really bad. But I was trying hard to concentrate my scattered thoughts and did not have time to consider that right now. "Kagome I am going to die so you have to listen." Well good, now I sounded like I thought because the thoughts were not separated like they should be so I hoped that she understood because I needed her to so bad but my strength was running out and my voice was failing again. She started sobbing because of what I said and that certainly was not what I wanted, not at all

"I didn't come to protect that jewel, I don't care about it at all god of the shrine or no." I said and then I closed my eyes and dreamed again of Miroku cursing far away, what a thing to dream about right now, a priest swearing but it was Miroku after all. "I came – for you only you."

"Kagome!" I must really be nearly gone because now Sango sounded like she was with me right now, but why was she talking to Kagome and not me since was not I closer to her because I was dying since she was dead and Kagome was alive? "Are you all right?"

"I'm not even going to ask how this is possible." Kagome said, trying to stop crying even though it was hard and she was still sobbing even when she took deep breaths. "But what are we going to do? Inuyasha is dying and even my time's medicine isn't going to be able to save him, not unless they get here right now."

"What?" Sango sounded suddenly lost, her voice fading into despair. "This is the future? After all Inuyasha went through to find you again, he is just going to die." Her voice broke and Sango sounded like she was crying and she sounded so much like the last time I had talked to her so long ago and I wanted to tell her that I had missed her so so terribly for so so long and that it had not been a waste because I would have done so much more to see Kagome again and I had not just seen her but I had kissed her too and told her I came for her and not the jewel and maybe even made all my stupid mistakes in the past a little better.

"She's gone, Sango, whoever she was." Miroku was here too and he made a little noise that said that he had not realized till now that I was going to die maybe because of all those holes in my body I had survived before he thought that I would be okay but he did not say anything else because he was Miroku and understood that he did not need to. But Sango's crying was suddenly muffled so I knew that they must be real because he was comforting her and they were not spirits or even hallucinations because I would not think of how sound would be cut off like that because I was not that quick.

"Isn't there any hope?" Sango said in her muffled voice against Miroku's chest and I almost did not hear her but I already knew the answer, or I thought I did until Kagome said

"Only one." She answered in that little determined voice that I had always loved so much but I did not understand what she was talking about until she added, "The damn thing that started all of this."

"But Kagome," Miroku said, "You know that thing always changes wishes."

"Maybe, maybe not. I've been purifying it for a few years now, and even if the wish soils it again, I can handle that." But I do not want you to use it, I wanted to tell her but I could hardly open my eyes anymore, all I could see were blurred shapes of Kagome and a large one of Sango and Miroku together and little Souta and maybe someone else in the background but it was hard to tell. Kagome didn't have to use it on me she should not use the jewel because it was evil.

Kagome's voice was grim and angry. "I waited three years to see him again, but he waited five hundred, and he made himself human and gave up his memories, all to find me again, and I'm not going to let his sacrifice be for nothing. Maybe Midoriko will help me." Kagome said, and before anyone could stop her, she clenched her little hand around the pink bead around her neck and suddenly, I really did not feel so well.

"Sister, how do you know he isn't going to turn into a zombie or something?"

"Shut up Souta. Go to bed."

"Yeah right. Not after all that happened. Someone else can have my bed. Mom and Grandpa are still awake too."

"Then go into the kitchen with them." Kagome sounded tired. "And get us some tea. I need caffine, or I am going to collapse."

"Maybe you should go to bed instead of me."

"Get out, Souta."

A door slid shut Kagome sighed in relief or exhaustion. "He's right." A voice said from a few feet away. It was Miroku. "How are we going to know?"

"When he wakes up." Kagome answered. "The jewel actually doesn't look any the worse for wear. It doesn't look anymore soiled than before." She sounded surprised. I felt her warmth beside me and she brushed back my hair. I was wrapped up in something soft and warm. A futon, not a bed, and she was beside me.

"Odd. But maybe you were right and Midoriko helped you, or something." Sango's soft voice suggested. There was a slight breeze in the room from the window as silence filled the room.

"How did you get here? As far as I can recall, only Inuyasha and I were ever able to go through the well."

Miroku cleared his throat, "Don't know exactly how we got through, but we did." He mused. "Since you left, things haven't been going well. Two days ago, Inuyasha got a powerful priestess to cast a spell on him to make him forget everything."

"And to live forever, or whatever." Kagome finished. "I know, some of it. But no one explained everything. Sesshoumaru didn't know, and Inuyasha was too confused to tell me. What exactly happened after Kikyou killed him?"

"She forgave him." Miroku answered, and Kagome's hand tightened suddenly around mine, as if she were angry. "We buried him, like you probably remember, and he broke out of the grave. But you were already gone, you'd been gone for days, and the well wouldn't let him follow you. He was furious. I guess his big plan was to go to hell with Kikyou so he could be reborn maybe in your time, because he couldn't see any other way to be with you as things stood." Kagome must have bowed her head because a tear fell onto the hand clutched in hers. I was beginning to get the feeling in my body back. "It's been a few months since then, and he's tried everything. He even dug the well ten feet deeper. So he found a way to wait for you."

"He found a way all right." Kagome said faintly.

"Why in the world was he fighting as a human? And where is Tetsusaiga?" Sango asked hesitantly. Her voice was closer now. I could not see, but I thought she was kneeling on my other side.

"It's the new moon, he didn't have a choice, and the sword broke." Kagome answered shortly. "But that is the least of our worries right now."

The door opened. "Oh, thanks, Souta." Kagome said softly, taking something from him and putting it down. "This tea should help." She paused, moving slightly beside me. "I don't know how many spare futons we have. Only three fit in here, but someone can sleep in the living room, or in my room." I wonder how long he's going to be out. If it's much longer, I am going to have to bring a futon in here. Speaking of which, I think we have enough spare futons for you four, at least I hope so."

"Ah, we only need one." I could not see Sango, but I knew she was blushing because I knew her. "Be careful Kirara, don't step on him, he's hurt." I was certain her face was bright red now, from her quick tone.

"Really?" Despite the situation, Kagome seemed very interested.

"Miroku and I got married, last month." Sango told her shyly, and Kagome made an excited sound.

"You should have told me! I would have stayed. Oh, I missed it?"

Miroku's answer was quiet. "It was not the sort of thing we wanted to bring up after Inuyasha died." Kagome's hand tightened around mine again, and she was silent.

"I can go grab one or two from Inuyasha's place." Shippou volunteered, interrupting. "He bought a couple the other day for us." He got to his feet. "Anything else?"

"Souta, will you see how many futons we need? We're going to need five, including me, but there are only two in here."

"Okay." The door closed behind Souta and Shippou.

"Can you tell me how you got here?" Kagome sounded tired.

"At home," Miroku said, "Inuyasha is still unconscious from the spell that made him human, and will remain so for a few more days. Hopefully we can be there when he wakes up. The three of us went over to the well, because we were thinking about you. He paused, and I could hear the rings on his staff clinking as he crouched down next to Sango. "Right after you left, we used to try to go through all the time. Sango got bored or something-"

"And I was throwing a few things I didn't need from the last demons kill. You know how I hate to waste but-"

"We were surprised to see that the remains started to disappear like they used to." Miroku finished. "We had tried everything to convince Inuyasha not to go through with the spell, and we were hoping that if we could get you and wake him up, he might not be affected by the spell at all, so we jumped in and hoped for the best."

"Instead, we found a battle and a dying Inuyasha." Sango picked up in a small, sad voice. It was the voice that I remembered from the days after her village had been destroyed. "That threw us a little at first, but probably not as much as it threw him, I'd imagine." She paused. "I wonder why the well suddenly changed its rules?"

"Something very odd is happening here." Kagome said in a reflective, thoughtful voice. "It is a long, complicated story, and I think we should wait to tell it until daylight. Are you going to sleep in here?"

"If it isn't too much trouble."

"That's what guest rooms are for."

Miroku's staff jangled again, and I heard him lean it against the wall. There was the sound of metal against glass. Miroku was tapping it experimentally. "There's a latch." Kagome told him. "Release it and the window slides open."

The window slid open slowly, and there was a long pause. "This land of the future is as amazing as Inuyasha described. But your buildings look the same still – except for this one."

"That's because this is a shrine. The buildings are old fashioned. Wait until you see the rest tomorrow." She sounded happy and faintly excited, despite all that had happened.

His feet moved quietly on the mats as he turned. "What about you, Kagome?"

"I'm staying down here with you guys tonight. I'll use one of the futons that Souta brings back."

There were muffled sounds of futons being laid out on tatami mats as Miroku and Sango went to sleep. After a while I heard the achingly familiar sounds of them breathing. Once, long ago, the four of us had slept often in a room together like this, whenever Miroku was able to con some rich family into offering us shelter. I was still only vaguely awake, but the sound of Miroku's strong breaths with Sango's quiet ones tugged at my heart sharply.

In some ways, I had missed them even more than I had missed Kagome. She I had not consciously remembered for more than a few months after her disappearance, but the memory of Sango and Miroku had stayed at the forefront of my memory for five long centuries. The pain of losing Kagome had been so bad that I had found a way to forget lest I lose my mind, but those memories were new, and they still seemed distant. The memories of the half-blood Inuyasha had not yet worked their way into the larger memory bank of the ageless Inuyasha, which was how I had been able to find her again without breaking into an uncontrollable outburst of emotion. But as time wore on, I began to recall the dreadful pain of losing Kagome, and the strength of my oldest memories grew every day.

I slept. It was hours before I truly regained consciousness and found that I could move again. The terrible wounds that had brought me to the brink of death were gone, and only a slight ache and stiffness was left in their wake. Kagome lay beside me in the tiny area between my futon and the wall, her fist curled beneath her cheek. There was a blanket thrown over her, perhaps by her brother when he had returned. I turned the other way, and nearly jumped out of my skin. I had heard and accepted that Sango and Miroku were here, but it was another thing entirely to lay eyes upon them for the first time in so long.

They lay beside us, in the position in which they always slept when they felt they might be attacked at any moment. Miroku lay behind his wife with an arm wrapped tightly around her, his back to the door. His hand rested lightly over her heart. I had always found that part amusing, because he had almost certainly developed the habit so as to be able to grope her whenever he wanted while claiming to be protecting her. Yet it was effective all the same. Her katana lay between their futon and mine, and I knew that Miroku's staff was at his back. I could hear Shippou whistling on the other end of the room.

"Kagome." I whispered. She was lying beside me, and even the shock of seeing my friends again could not draw my attention from her for long. My voice cracking as if I had not used it for weeks. Her eyes shot open and she looked at me.

"Inuyasha!" We stared at each other for several seconds before I lifted up the blanket and pulled her underneath it with nearly all the strength available to me, which was not much. She started crying again. She cried so easily sometimes, and other times she would not at all. "Inuyasha."

"It's okay." I said, feeling just as flustered by her tears as I had the first time I had seen them. I guess some things never change. Nothing had changed, not in five hundred long years, not with her. I wrapped my arms around her as tightly as I could in my weakened state, and wished, not for the first time, for her to never have cause to cry ever, ever again.


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

When I woke again, it was nearly morning. Faint light filtered through the edges of the shade on the window, and illuminated the room. I glanced around in momentary confusion. Tatami mats, sliding doors, futons – was I back in feudal times again? Then I realized that we must be in the guest room, the only Japanese-style room in the house. I blinked several times and glanced slowly around the room. Kagome was asleep next to me, her arm still loosely around my waist and her head resting on my shoulder. All seemed peaceful. Evidently, Sazura and her allies had not returned to capitalize on her utter defeat of me. I made a fist with my free hand and scowled. I was going to get her for that.

My mind filled with revenge, I glanced quickly around and saw Tetsusaiga resting beside me. It was not until I had hastily seized it that I remembered what had happened before Sazura and I had fought. I let it fall on the soft cloth beside me, the lust for revenge trickling from my mind, the void quickly filled by the shock of realization. Tetsusaiga was broken. Could it be fixed, in this day and age? The great master-smiths were long since dead, and there had always only been one being that could work on the Tetsusaiga. Had I really lost the sword my father had bequeathed to me, the only constant companion that I had had in the long years of my forgetfulness?

Beside me, there was slight movement, and I tore my eyes from contemplation of my sword to the two friends long since dead who lay beside Kagome and me. Sango had opened her eyes, and was blinking around the unfamiliar room in confusion before she relaxed, her hand lightly touching the hand that rested over her heart. "Eh," she said softly, "_Houshi_-ah, no."

Miroku's eyes opened slowly, and he turned her toward him. He waited, tracing her cheek. "Miroku." She said finally. "Miroku." Evidently, she had not gotten used to dropping the title by which she had always referred to him. I remembered her relapsing even years into their life together. He smiled slightly and leaned forward- I shut my eyes tightly. Five hundred years old I might be, but I remained the same person I had always been, and that person had always been ridiculously flustered by that sort of thing.

Lucky for me, Sango and I had similar attitudes. "Not now!" She hissed. "Everyone's here!"

"Oh?" He seemed surprised. "Oh yeah! I forgot."

There was a long pause. "You forgot?" She waited, but he did not elaborate. "You forgot?"

"It's your fault, you know."

"My fault?"

"Sango," he said, and from the tone of his voice, I knew he was about to launch into shameless flattery and bullshit on par with the times – many times – he had tried to defend his obsession with pretty girls, and with either requesting heirs of them, or feeling them up, or even both. "Sango, when I am with you, I forget everything else."

"Idiot." She pushed him away and got to her feet, making an annoyed sound. Suddenly she stopped, and drew in a sharp little breath. "Kagome – and Inuyasha. I guess he did it, and that means we aren't going to see him again when we go home."

"Ah?" Miroku rose too. "What do you mean? Inuyasha's at home."

"Yes, but he's not going to be the same anymore." Sango's voice was sad. "He won't remember who he was, or the things we all did together, or Kagome." Involuntarily, I tightened my arms around the slight girl in my own arms. "Ah! He's waking up."

"Let's go out." Miroku said quietly. "He probably needs sleep." She made a soft assenting sound and followed him out of the room. I listened carefully for several moments after the door had slid shut after them, but I could not hear Shippou breathing. Obviously he had been the first to rise.

I slowly opened my eyes again sighed, opening and closing my fist experimentally. "The jewel's power, huh?" I whispered to myself. It was a little scary now, not that I would want to reverse the wish that Kagome had made. But like Miroku used to say, no one was ever made happy by the power of the Jewel of the Four Souls. I wondered what would happen now. Of course, I thought that I had heard Kagome say that the Jewel was not sullied by her wish, but somehow I could not believe that nothing would come of what had happened. If only my fool brother had been there, if he had not been running off wherever he had gone, he might have been persuaded to use Tenseiga, and we would not have to be worrying about that right now.

As if conjured by the thought of my brother, I heard a familiar voice in the outer room cry suddenly, "You two? Where did you come from?"

In my arms, Kagome stirred. "That voice," she said softly, rubbing her eye. "It's been a long time." She looked up at me, and gasped. "Inuyasha!"

"Yes?"

She hauled herself up on one elbow and looked over me with wide eyes, touching my face in the same way Miroku had touched Sango's only moments before. "Are you all right?"

"Of course I am!" I shot back. "No idiot woman like that whore Sazura is going to-" I broke off suddenly when she smiled suddenly and hugged me tightly. "Kagome?"

"If you can hurl insults like that, you really are all right." She said against my shoulder. "Maybe more you than you've been all this time." She was silent for a moment, hugging me tightly and trembling slightly. "Inuyasha," her voice was tight, "I missed you so much."

"Kagome." I hugged her tightly, and we sat there for a moment listening to Miroku and Jaken argue in the outer room. If he was here, then Sesshoumaru must have returned. It figured that he would only show up when he was not needed. "That idiot, Sesshoumaru." I growled.

"Inuyasha?"

"For all that time he spent hanging around, he's gone when we could have used him." I growled.

"Hey, Inuyasha." Kagome said suddenly, looking up at me, "don't be unkind – he helped me out a lot when you weren't around." I shut my mouth with a snap, realizing that she was right with a scowl. "Besides, what does he have to do with this?"

"He's only here cause Sazura is, and he wants her guts for garters – that way he can be sure she's dead this time. But he disappears when he's needed."

Kagome made a disgusted face at the imagery, and then looked thoughtful. "Why _does_ he hate her so much?"

"I told you I don't know!"

"Maybe you should ask him."

"Maybe you should." I answered. "I don't really care, but if you ask that guy anything personal, he'll either stare balefully at you, or attack you for your insolence."

"Yes, but, Inuyasha – it had something to do with that little girl-"

I shrugged, sitting up abruptly. "He never told me before. I don't think he wants to talk about it. Ask him if you want."

"Hm." Kagome sat up too, and stretched, her eyes trained on the door. Things had quieted down outside. "I'm hungry." She said, righting her rumpled clothes and getting carefully to her feet. "Ah! Sango! Miroku! I forgot!" She ran out the door without another word.

"Lots of people forgetting around here." I muttered to myself. "Isn't that my job, since I was the one dying?" Reminded of my condition, I glanced quickly down. My pants were the same, but my shirt was different. The other must have been completely soaked with blood. I considered this pensively for a moment before following Kagome out the door, moving quickly, as if that would let me leave the horrors of the previous night behind.

My brother and I had a fight. Not a real one, like in the old days when we hated each other, but an impressive argument. I was angry, perhaps irrationally so, that he had disappeared without a word two days before all of this had happened, even though there was obviously no way he could have known that Sazura would attack the shrine with the strength of numbers that she did. He probably would not have cared anyway, but I was more angry at myself for nearly getting myself killed like that. After all, I was intimately aware of how dangerous Sazura was, yet I had resolved to fight her, alone. But then, I had always had a habit of putting myself in terrible danger whenever Kagome was involved. Some things would obviously never change.

Before he left in disgust at my behavior, he managed to tell me that he had spent the past few days in Osaka, interrogating the lords of the underworld about how things stood there. So far as he had been able to discover, nothing strange had happened down in the Kansai area, aside from the strange man Shippou had mentioned poking around. I did not know where my brother had gone, and since I was still sore at my own impotence, I had not thought to ask. Not that he would have told me.

"No! No way!" I was torn from my thoughts by a screech upstairs that sounded like Sango – Sango at her most embarrassed. Since she was also her most violent then, I investigated cautiously. "I can't wear this!"

"Are these clothes normal for your time, Kagome?" Miroku's voice asked in a quieter tone, a fascinated tone. He and Kagome were standing near the top of the stairs. Sango was half-crouched near the door to Kagome's room, bending down in a ridiculous attempt to cover her legs. Her face was beet-red. Apparently Kagome had tried to find Sango something to wear, but miniskirts did not much suit Sango's temperament.

"Yes." Kagome answered Miroku, sounding defeated.

"I like this time." He turned toward his wife, looking her up and down slowly. "Let's stay here, Sango."

"Pervert!"

"Isn't he your husband?" Kagome asked, crossing her arms and raising an eyebrow.

"This is so embarrassing! I don't know how you wear this!"

I laughed from the bottom of the stairs and Sango glared daggers at me, finally standing straight. "You can wear a skin-tight suit to fight demons, but a simple skirt is beyond you?"

"Shut up, Inuyasha."

"Maybe I have a pair of pants somewhere." Kagome said doubtfully. "I don't know if we're the same size, Sango. You've got such a little waist, you're bigger than me below that." Sango made a cry of even greater embarrassment and ran back into Kagome's room. His eyes registering nothing resembling forethought, Miroku followed her, his eyes trained on her behind. Predictably, two seconds after he had entered the room after her, the sound of a slap resounded throughout the house.

Kagome shook her head and looked down at me. "Inuyasha?"

"Yeah?"

"Is your wallet still as deep as it was the other day?"

"Yes. But can she go shopping like that? She can't even come out in front of her friends."

"Maybe we'll have better luck with a dress?" Kagome went back in her room and pushed Miroku, who seemed to have reached some kind of temporary paradise despite the red handprint on his face, out, shutting the door behind her.

"You're lucky to live here, Inuyasha." Miroku told me.

"Some of us aren't as skirt-obsessed as you." I shot back, eying him as he came back down the stairs, schooling his face into the semblance of a good servant of Buddha. "Sometimes other things are more important. Come look."

I took him out to the stairs of the shrine, from which it was much easier to see just how much the modern world differed from the one that existed on the other side of the well. I took him over to my apartment to borrow some clothes. Although we got a few stares, he fit in rather well. We still had monks that dressed more or less like Miroku, and this was Tokyo, after all. A man dressed as a monk from the time before the shoguns was far from the oddest thing the people of Tokyo had seen. He had a hard time with the elevator, but otherwise handled the modern world relatively well. However, I was a little worried about how he and Sango were going to handle the trains. Maybe we should take the bus.

By the time we got back, Kagome had finally found something that would fit Sango that she would actually wear. We took the train after all. Perhaps it was not so surprising that Miroku and Sango had so little trouble with the many unexpected things they encountered in the modern world. After all, we had seen many stranger things during our long hunt for Naraku. Tokyo was a shopping paradise, so once we got going, it was more than simple to find the feudal-era couple some clothes to wear while they stayed in the future with us.

Surprisingly, Sesshoumaru emailed me while we were shopping and told me to meet him at Shibuya station later. Shibuya is one of the great meeting places of Tokyo, and it was as packed as always when we finally arrived there late in the day, exhausted and dragging along huge bags of clothes and other amenities. I leaned again the statue of Hachiko, and glanced around, waiting for Sesshoumaru to show up. Even in a place like Tokyo, he managed to be unique, and stood out in the crowd, which parted with surprising ease to let him pass. Obviously he still retained some of his majestic aura.

He had no sooner reached us than I spotted, or rather heard, another familiar person. "Inuyasha!" She hissed, and I whirled, my hand reaching for a sword that I did not carry. Sazura stood before us in the guise of a human, her bright hair darkened to a deep burgundy and her eyes a more human shade of green. She looked like any other fashionable frequenter of Shibuya station. "Inuyasha! Impossible. I killed you."

"You'd be surprised." I shrugged, suppressing a growl. "The power of the Jewel is unmatched by any other in this world."

Sazura's eyes fell on Kagome, who tensed beside me, recognizing our enemy less quickly than Sesshoumaru and I had. "The Priestess of the Jewel! You used it to save him?" She narrowed her eyes, looking between us. "Something strange is going on here. What are you hiding?" She moved forward so quickly it was hard for even me to follow, but her advance was abruptly arrested when Kagome stepped in front of me, her hands clenched.

"Lay another hand on him," Kagome hissed, "And I will kill you. I will kill you, and ensure that this time you will stay dead. I will melt you slowly with the holy power I hold, starting from your feet to your head."

"Get in line." Sesshoumaru hissed. He was leaning against the statue, as I had been. He looked at Sazura with heavily lidded eyes. On the surface, he seemed unconcerned by her presence, but glinting in his eyes I could see the hate that always smoldered within him upon meeting Sazura. "I am first. The rest of you may fight amongst yourselves for second place."

"Why do you hate me so, Sesshoumaru?" Sazura demanded, drawing herself up. This time, when she asked the question, she seemed far less playful than she had before.

"You know why."

Sazura narrowed her eyes, anger lighting in her gaze. "That ancient history?" She demanded, "What came to pass was your own fault. If you had not scorned me so, Sesshoumaru, I should have not done it." I paused, and Kagome grabbed my arm, her eyes wide with apparent realization.

"Ho? You don't expect me to believe that."

"If you had not reneged on your promise to me, I would not have needed to take revenge on the girl!"

Sesshoumaru's face tightened slightly, and he drew himself into a standing position. "Die." He said, raising one hand. In the glittering sun, I could see his nails growing longer and sharper as the spells that hid his true form began to fall away.

"Don't be ridiculous." Sazura said dismissively. "I cannot fight you here. I am bound." She smiled slyly at him. "I'll come find you later, Sesshoumaru. We can talk about old times then."

She turned and walked away unconcernedly as my brother stared at her retreating back, fury written all over his face. Kagome glanced around at us quickly, and at the few people watching us furitively. "Let's go." She decided, peeling me off the base of the statue of the faithful dog, which I had I backed in helpless shock when my brother did not deny Sazura's insinuations.

She dragged me toward the station door, and the others followed more slowly. But I could not help myself. "Sesshoumaru! You were-" I stuck out my tongue in disgust. "Sazura?"

There had been times when Sesshoumaru and I had hated each other. There had been times when we had all but denied our relationship, and he my right to be his brother at all, to claim the same father, the same heritage. There had been times when we had fought with all the savagery buried in our natures, and times when we had brought each other to the very brink of death, many times. Yet the glare he directed at me now was far more baleful than any he had unleashed upon me in the days when we fought over mastery of Tetsusaiga, or the right to the blood of our father.

"Engaged?" Kagome said, her eyes surprised. We were sitting back at her house, and she was gently coercing him into explaining. Her efforts were greatly aided by her decision to plant her hand over my mouth early on in the conversation, where it had remained. I had long stopped fighting, and was contenting myself with merely staring at my brother in disgust. They were both pointedly ignoring me.

"Yes, long ago." Sesshoumaru answered, his tone dispassionate once again. "Make no mistake. I had no feeling for her. It was a necessity, to carry on my line. It was my duty."

"Ah." Kagome frowned. "But?"

"I changed my mind." Sesshoumaru shrugged. "She was angry, but she could do nothing."

"But if she did nothing," I moved so suddenly that Kagome's hand slipped. "Why do you hate her?"

"Inuyasha!" Kagome exclaimed. Sesshoumaru had stuck his nose in the air and refused to even look at me. But his eyes were far away. Kagome watched him in silence for several minutes before she finally said gently, "She could not take her anger out on you, you mean." My brother gave no evidence that he had heard her speak at all. "So she took it out on someone else. Someone-"

She broke off and I tensed suddenly, because my brother's face hardened at her words. But he was not angry at Kagome, but at Sazura, and at memory itself. "Rin." He said. "She knew nothing of her, nothing of what she was-" he broke off, and his eyes focused on the reincarnated priestess again. "She took her and had her revenge."

Kagome nodded slowly. "I understand. And Rin was killed?" My brother lowered his head into an understated nod, and would say no more.

Later, after he had gone wherever it is that he goes when he disappears suddenly, I was sitting in downstairs with the others, wallowing in my disgust. "Gross! Sazura?"

"What is your problem, Inuyasha?" Shippou demanded finally, his eyebrow ticking in annoyance, "Sazura is far from physically repelling. You just don't like her."

"She must be very powerful if your brother considered her for a wife." Kagome mused. She had been very quiet since my brother had left. "How terrible. It must have been so hard for him – poor Rin."

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. She was thinking something, something besides pity for the poor thing that had fallen victim to my brother's enemies. I was honestly not surprised at the girl's fate. "Not like he really cared. He didn't care about anyone but himself."

She raised an eyebrow at me and shook her head with a sigh. "As thick as ever, aren't you?"

"What?"

"I think-" Kagome shook her head. "Sesshoumaru did not say why he decided to break off the engagement. But maybe I can guess at his feelings." She was silent for a moment before she said, "I might be wrong – I could easily be wrong – but I think that Sesshoumaru cared a lot more about that little girl than he lets on."

"Kagome!" Sango exclaimed.

"Ugh- that's event worse!" I exclaimed. "She was a little girl!"

"Inuyasha, he didn't say _when_ she died." Kagome pointed out acidly. "But I don't recall the continuation of his lineage being such a big deal when we knew him. It could have been years later, and it probably was."

"Are you sure about that, Kagome?" Miroku asked. "It seems unlikely."

"Like I said, I could be wrong but – Sesshoumaru, he still thinks about her a lot, even though she has been dead a very long time." I was about to point out that I had been similarly haunted by the deaths of Miroku and Sango, but managed to catch myself before I spoke of their deaths right in front of them. After the moment had passed, I realized that the example only proved Kagome's point. I had mourned them because I cared about them, even if it was not the same kind of love she was talking about. "It isn't just guilt for the role he played in her death. I don't think Sesshoumaru feels that kind of responsibility for the fates of others. And even if he did, there's no reason to feel it so strongly after all these years."

"But if he cared about her like that then why marry Sazura?" Miroku asked. But his tone suggested he believed Kagome was correct.

"He didn't." Kagome answered, glancing at the monk. "Besides," she laughed suddenly, but there was little humor or amusement in the sound, "even if he really loved her, he wouldn't have married her, or probably even touched her." I looked quickly at her. "This is Sesshoumaru we're talking about. He, who raged against his father for loving your mother, who crowed constantly about his superiority – I don't think he could have done it, no matter how strong his feelings."

"I wonder what happened." Sango said slowly. "He said she died, but not how."

"It's the past." I said with a shrug, getting to my feet. "Like it really matters."

"You of all people should know how strong the past is, Inuyasha." Kagome admonished me, and I was struck silent, staring at her. She shook her head. "Are you leaving?"

"I was thinking about it."

She looked at me for a long moment before rising too. "If it's okay, I want to go with you." I started. "It's getting too dangerous with all these demons. They know where the shrine is, and my family might get hurt one of these days." Our eyes met for a long moment and I nodded, holding my hand out to her. Shippou got up too.

"Hey, Miroku, Sango, let's go." I said curtly to them, and they glanced up in surprise. "Come on. You're staying with me. I've got an extra bedroom." They looked from Kagome to me and back again, and her face turned a red to rival Sango's blush of that morning. I colored too. "What?"

"Understood." Miroku said in his understated way, rising and looking to his wife. "But how in the world are we going to get the Hiraigotsu from here to there without attracting a crowd?"

Shippou laughed. "Leave it to me. Concealment is a specialty of foxes, you know."

"You pervert!" The shout came from the other room, accompanied by the sound of violence. I opened one eye and glanced in the direction of the sound for a moment, then closed it again.

"I told him." I said simply.

"What is that about?" Kagome asked in surprise. She was standing on the balcony of my bedroom, and had been looking out over the city before the interruption. Laughing with a glance toward the other bedroom, I rose from the bed and joined her.

"Did you see the white and pink bag he had?"

"The really big one?"

"Yes." I laughed again. After the initial outburst, there had been silence, which only amused me more. "While we were shopping, Miroku discovered lingerie."

Kagome's eyes bugged out. "That bag?"

I nodded. "And even though I told him that Sango was probably not as enamored of the idea as he was, he insisted on buying out the store anyway."

"He's hopeless, isn't he?"

"Well, it's quiet now." I pointed out. "Either Sango knocked him out on the first try, or he's persuading her more successfully." I leaned on the balcony next to her, looking out. "Tokyo. It changes so quickly. I remember when none of these buildings were here. It was not so very long ago."

Kagome was silent beside me for a long moment. "What was it like, living so long?"

"Depended." I answered. "It was fun sometimes, but it's sort of depressing when the people you like keep dying on you." Although my tone was light, the seriousness of my comment somehow seeped past my guard. Kagome suddenly wormed her way in between me and the railing of the balcony. "Kagome."

She rested her head on my shoulder and wrapped her arms around me. "Did you really do it to see me again?" I did not answer. Did I really need to? Instead, I wrapped my arms around her and inhaled the long-forgotten scent of her hair. A long silence passed between us before she suddenly asked, "I don't suppose you thought to get me anything at that shop Miroku liked so much?"

"Kagome!" I pulled away from her quickly, and saw that she was laughing at me.

"I guess not. But it's okay without it, right?" She hugged me again.

"Kagome!" I exclaimed again.

"What?" She looked at me. Even though her voice was playful, she was blushing furiously. "It's not like it's that big of deal. I'm nineteen now, and" she looked up into my eyes, and her expression softened as her blush faded slowly away, "and, I love you, Inuyasha."

I leaned down to kiss her, but stopped when something abruptly occurred to me. "But Kagome, shrine maidens are virgins." She raised an eyebrow and frowned at me. "If we do – that, then, then – you might lose your power!" She frowned in realization. "I can't-"

"I don't care." She said firmly, wrapping her arms around my neck. "You gave up all your powers for me once, and I'm perfectly willing to do the same." She giggled softly, and I could not help but smile too. "Besides, my big-bad half-demon, you're back now, so you can protect the shrine and the jewel of the four souls for me."

"That has got to be a first." I muttered, lifting her in a tight embrace. "A demon – or half-demon, protecting a shrine and the jewel of the four souls." She shook her head, burying her smile in my neck, her arms tight around me. I lifted her inside and shut the balcony door behind me with a sharp click.


	9. Chapter 8

Here is the next chapter. I really appreciate reviews! They make it fun to write and update.

Chapter 8

True to form, Sesshoumaru suddenly disappeared from Tokyo, and refused to answer either my emails or calls. I suspected that he had put his cell phone somewhere the moment he left and was not paying the slightest attention to it. He never had liked the advent of instant communication. That sort of thing never sat well with people who did not like to talk. In his absence, I felt surprisingly lost, more because I did not really have any idea of where to begin our research into the new evil-incarnate than because I had been relying on him. Shippou was really as good to bounce ideas off of as Sesshoumaru was, but we got nowhere with that tactic. Our problem was really that the simple release of the demons alone hardly generated enough evidence to have any idea of an overarching plan.

I was really starting to wish that I had not let the mysterious figure with Sazura see me, even if it was in my human form. Even in that form I was rather noteworthy, particularly if one ran in the circles in which I was apparently still known as the "Ageless One." The man who now controlled Sazura had seemed to know nothing of me, but it was easy to fake ignorance, especially if he had been trying to find out the exact connection between Sazura and I.

Speaking of Sazura, I wondered if she really planned to make good on her offer to fight Sesshoumaru. She had certainly seemed serious enough. I really hoped that he had not disappeared so that he could fight her quietly, and away from the interference of the rest of us, particularly me. After all, I wanted another go at her. She had nearly killed me, and it would not do to encourage that sort of behavior among my enemies.

Another one of my enemies showed up about a week after Sesshoumaru had made his dramatic exit from Kagome's house. Perhaps Akuma of the Council of Ten was not exactly an enemy, but he was certainly not a friend. I did not actually know whether or not he held so high a position in the Tokyo underworld government that I had helped set up so long ago, but I strongly suspected it. He had moved through the high security of the pits and the lower floors unfettered, and his manner had struck me as one who ran the show. But even those in charge of Tokyo's underworld were at a loss as to where their precious fighting demons had disappeared to, and Akuma wanted me to level with him.

He contented himself with leaving a message on my phone, even though I had not given him the number, and it was listed under the name of Hideko, not Inuyasha. I took the point. He knew where I was, and where to find me. It was smart of him to only go so far. Had he shown up at my door, or Kagome's house, I would have had no choice but to view him as a threat, something to be eliminated.

We met in a bar at the top of Tokyo's cityscape, and took a private room. Kagome had insisted on coming with me, and once we were there, I guessed at the reason. The black priestess was there too. Kagome did not usually seek out fights, but she seemed to make an exception when it came to this woman. They kept their glares silent while Akuma and I talked business. It seemed that the underworld knew even less about the location and status of their missing demons than we did, which surprised me. They were usually pretty good at knowing just about everything that went on, even in a huge city like Tokyo.

"I know who you are." Makura said suddenly, breaking her silence. She had spent the last half hour staring balefully at Kagome, who stood near the window. She was looking down over the city as I had noticed she often did from our apartment, or had been before this direct challenge.

Unfazed by his companion's dramatic announcement, Akuma picked up the phone, easily cutting through the tension that had begun to build. "Drinks?"

"Get me another beer." I told him. "Kagome?"

I was pleased to see that she was entirely unaffected by the animosity of the other woman, crossing the room quickly to lean over me and look at the menu. "Get me the pineapple one, please. It looks good." She glanced back at the black priestess.

"You're the priestess of the Jewel of the Four Souls." The woman said.

"Yes." Kagome answered, unconcerned, sliding into a chair beside me.

Akuma's eyes narrowed for a single instant, and he looked between us. But then the effect was abruptly gone, and I was not entirely convinced that I had not imagined it. "Don't be obnoxious, Makura." He sighed, and she looked at him in surprise. "That must be why you know more about the demons than we do. At least someone does." He looked at me, and took a breath. "How do you feel about being bait?"

"I don't work for the underworld anymore, and I don't have dealings with you." I answered. "Make it worth our while, and I might think about it."

The door opened suddenly, and our drinks were brought in. Akuma waited until the waitress had gone before he nodded slowly. He made an annoyed sound. "Really, the Council makes these sorts of decisions so clumsy. If it were just me-" he broke off and shook his head.

"I will see what can be done to make it worth your while."

When we got home, Sesshoumaru was in our apartment. That would have been slightly more alarming if it had not been for the fact that Miroku and Sango had probably let him in, and Shippou and Kohaku were lounging around as well. Actually, Kohaku was glued to the window, dressed in the clothes his sister had bought him during our shopping trip. He appeared to be fascinated by the city, but too wary of the height to actually go out on the balcony. Demon slaying had made him very aware of his own mortality.

"Long time no see." I said sarcastically, sitting down on the floor in irritation. I had changed back into my half-blood form the moment I walked into the door, almost with relief. Akuma was nothing like his companion, but his presence nevertheless put me on edge, and I was glad to be home. Now that I had access to my stronger form, my human body felt terrifyingly weak and vulnerable. "To what do we owe this pleasure?"

"I hope you're ready to take a trip." Sesshoumaru said simply. "We leave tomorrow."

"And where are we going?" Kagome asked brightly, looking excited. Sesshoumaru almost rolled his eyes, but apparently remembered that he was above such expressions of distaste.

"Bring your sword." He commanded, and I jumped to my feet in agitation. "We are going to see Toutousai."

Toutousai had apparently taken refuge from the encroaching cities high in the mountains, though not especially far from Tokyo. Lucky for us, we could reach him fairly easily with the train, even if it would require a few transfers. He lived not far from a small town on the train line, but we would have to walk, or maybe take a taxi, to his house. We did not reach the area until late evening. There were hot springs in the area, which allowed us to find somewhere decent to stay for the night, a night I spent on pins and needles. Would Toutousai be able to fix Tetsusaiga? He always had before, and I had no real reason to be worried, but I could not help it. I obviously depended less on my sword than I had in the days when it had first broken, but I wanted it to be fixed nevertheless.

"How did you find him?" I asked my brother during dinner in a low voice, unsure whether or not he would deign to tell me.

"I have contacts in the world of demons." He answered. "Toutousai was never famous, but he is known."

"I wonder why he chose to come out here." Kagome wondered.

"Well, he never was very social." Miroku pointed out, and Sango nodded agreement. All five of us had made the journey. We had left Kohaku and Shippou in Tokyo to watch the shrine in Kagome's absence, even though she carried the Jewel with her. We could not be too careful. "How far from here?"

"A little distance from it." He looked sideways at me. "Well, brother? Shall we take advantage of the small benefits of this hotel and have a bath the old fashioned way?"

Toutousai lived in an old house a few miles away from the town center. We took a taxi to the area, but had to walk a little distance. Toutousai was apparently not much impressed by modern amenities. However, the very fact that he lived in a house these days was actually surprising. It was a big improvement over the enormous skull in the middle of a perpetually cooling lava field he used to live in.

Kagome paused outside the door. "Excuse us!" She called, "Hello?"

The place looked deserted, but we went inside anyway. Just inside the door, we became aware of a commotion near the back of the house. Men's voices were raised in anger or excitement, and were followed by the sound of a woman's frightened voice. Kagome glanced quickly at me before abandoning her shoes and running to investigate. I was right behind her.

"Let me go!" The woman's voice exclaimed suddenly, sounding even more frightened. "Leave me alone!"

We found a young woman in her mid-twenties being harassed by three large men, all of whom I was not convinced were really human. Most demon's human disguises are all right, but they are generally easily recognizable if one knows what to look for. In the case of these three, their size alone was suspicious.

"What's going on here?" Kagome demanded, stepping fearlessly into the room.

The young girl looked suddenly at us, her brown eyes wide. I stopped suddenly. She seemed vaguely familiar for a moment, but then the effect was gone. "Please help me!" She cried, trying again to jerk her arms out of their hold, but only succeeded in hurting herself.

The men holding her looked at each other, and at us. I glanced quickly around for a sword, dropping my own human disguise without thinking. They did not look strong; I could probably deal with them with my bare hands. "Sanko-"

There was the singularly chilling sound behind me of my brother drawing his sword. He had a way of drawing the action out so that it, like everything else, became part of his general aura of terrible power. Wordlessly, I stepped aside, and as he glided past me, I saw that the spells altering his appearance had been deactivated. He always was good at using effect to avoid actual confrontation, not that he feared it.

Sesshoumaru did not even have to get near them before the three men dropped the girl and ran for it. I laughed, and was about to make a comment when Kagome abruptly grabbed my arm. The startled young woman was looking in the direction her intended kidnappers had run with a relieved expression, rubbing her arm where one of them had held her. So distracted, she had yet noticed that my brother was watching her with an unprecedented interest. I had not even known that Sesshoumaru was capable of such a shocked, rapturous gaze. He usually had no interest in humans whatsoever – and with that thought, I understood.

Now certain that they were gone, the woman turned back toward us, and noticed finally that she was being watched. "Thank yo-" she broke off, looking at my brother's face for the first time, perplexed, furrowing her brow slightly. His gaze did not seem to be the only cause of her confusion.

"Rin." My brother spoke under his breath, but in the silent room it was more than loud enough to hear. The girl started, visibly alarmed.

"How do you know my name?" She demanded, backing warily away from us, her eyes on Sesshoumaru's face. She had the distinct look of one who has gotten out of one dangerous situation into another, and seemed to think that we might have the same intentions as the men from whom we had saved her, whatever those had been.

Kagome glanced quickly from the woman to my brother, and decided to intervene. "We were looking for Toutousai." She said, her tone friendly. "Is this where he lives?"

"Yes, but he's not here." She seemed marginally less alarmed. I found myself watching her as well. Sesshoumaru had gotten a hold of himself and had regained some semblance of his usual detachment, though he did not take his eyes off of her. I could understand. The last time I had seen Rin, she had been only a child, and my memories were clouded by the long years, and the fact that I had only seen her a few times. Yet even I could see that it was not just as passing resemblance.

"Yes I am!" A voice said from behind her, and the ancient forger of my sword bounced suddenly into the room. "Did you need something?"

"Why is it that whenever I really need your help, you're never around?" She asked him acidly.

But he was looking at me, with an expression less surprised than I would have expected. "Inuyasha, is it?" He glanced to my brother. "And Sesshoumaru?" At the sound of my brother's name, Rin started slightly, as if she recognized it. But that was impossible.

"Clearly." My brother said simply.

"Together? That's a first." He glanced at me. "I assume you broke your sword again?"

I started to nod, but was interrupted. "They tried to kidnap me again!" Rin told him worriedly, and my brother's eyes flicked briefly from her face to look at Toutousai. "What am I going to do?"

"Again?" Kagome echoed.

"Rin is my assistant." Toutousai answered, holding his hand out to me for my sword. "One of my stronger demon customers took an interest in her, and has been trying to take her off my hands."

She glared at him. "Take him off your hands?" Sango repeated, blinking. "That's not what I would call it."

Toutousai pulled Tetsusaiga from the sheath and glanced at it. Suddenly he stopped, and looked at Rin thoughtfully. "I'll make you a deal." He told me, and I raised an eyebrow. "In return for fixing the sword-"

"I'm not going to protect you from anyone." I told him flatly. "You nearly got me killed that time you set me against Sesshoumaru." I jerked my head in his direction, but predictably, my brother made no notice. The girl, who had been warily watching Sesshoumaru back, blinked suddenly.

"Well, you'll owe me." Toutousai pointed out.

"I've never paid you before." I shot back. "Why start now?"

"Inuyasha!" Kagome scolded. She sighed, obviously not quite trusting the old smith's intentions either. "What did you want him to do?"

"Take Rin for a little while." She looked sharply at us, startled. "If she makes a sudden disappearance, the man interested in her might give up and leave us alone."

I eyed her carefully, doubtful. But before I had the chance to answer for myself, Sesshoumaru did it for me. "Very well." He stepped forward, his gaze on Toutousai. "Fix my idiot brother's sword. We will protect the girl."

Toutousai nodded. "Come back in a few days for the sword. She'll stay here for now, but take her with you when you go back to Tokyo." I decided that I did not exactly want to know how he knew where we had come from.

My attention was not on Toutousai anyway, but on the newest addition to our little band. Rin was looking at Sesshoumaru with the expression of one who has once again met someone once dear to them, but of whom memories have clouded and faded with time. But that was impossible. Even if Rin was a reincarnation of the girl that Kagome thought my brother had loved, as she clearly was, she should not be able to remember the events of that life. Kagome had certainly known nothing of Kikyo and her experiences, and even intimate knowledge of Kikyo and the details of her life had never done anything to jog her memory. Reincarnations did not recall events of their past lives. Yet there was no question in my mind that Rin did recognize Sesshoumaru, even if she was not yet sure where the memories were from. Why did Rin remember things that other reincarnations did not? Souls forgot the events of their past lives to escape ties of love and hatred that bound them to a world they had left behind. Was there some reason that Rin was exempt from this liberating forgetfulness?


	10. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The trip back to Tokyo was a strange one. Sesshoumaru sat on the far side of the car from Rin, almost as if he were disassociating himself from her. Yet he spent the entire trip watching her, as if he could not take his eyes from her, could not accept that she was really there, or perhaps, that she was not the girl he had known five hundred years before. For the first time in all the years I had known him, he seemed unsure.

Rin sat with her head bowed, shoulders hunched, raising her head now and again to look warily around at us. But the passing scenery and the strangers with her did nothing to ease her anxiety. Kagome and Sango did their best to engage her in conversation, but she was just too overwhelmed to be responsive. Her gaze moved often to the statuesque man on the opposite side of the train.

When we reached a noisy station, Kagome leaned near me and asked under the cover of the din, "What do you think?"

Without looking at her I answered. "Maybe if we knew more about her back then – I just don't get it."

We were silent for the rest of the trip. As we got closer to Tokyo the car filled up, so there was not much chance for conversation anyway. It was evening when we finally arrived in Shibuya, and everyone was weary, and the day's adventures were not over yet. When we stepped off the train, Jaken stood waiting on the platform.

He was disguised as a human, of course, but I was accustomed to seeing through such disguises. They usually only covered a demon's more obvious non-human features, leaving the rest untouched. He was still short, though human sized. His eyes were unnaturally large, and his mouth stuck out a bit like he beak he had in his natural form. When his eyes lit up as Sesshoumaru exited the train, I knew my identification was correct, though I wondered at the absence of his precious staff.

As usual, he ignored everyone except Sesshoumaru. Bowing, he exclaimed, "Lord Sesshoumaru! You called this unworthy-"

Whatever depreciating names he was going to call himself remained unuttered when Sesshoumaru cut him off. Without the smallest glance in our direction, or that of the girl he had watched continually throughout the entire train ride, he walked off toward the stairs. Jaken automatically turned to follow him.

I watched this sudden departure, bemused. "What a jerk."

"No. I think he left quickly so that Jaken wouldn't have a chance to see her." Kagome said in a low voice.

"But why was Jaken here?"

"Sesshoumaru mailed him on his phone." She answered. "I saw him doing it when we first got on the train. She seemed all right at first, you know. He probably saw that she was getting upset, and decided not to expose her to another stranger. Jaken isn't exactly subtle."

"That's true." I raised my eyes toward the ceiling, trying to imagine Jaken's probable reception, and winced. It would be loud. There would be a dance, shouting, and pointing.

"Are you ready to go?" Kagome asked the girl, who had backed up defensively against a steel column while Kagome and I had our conference.

Rin shoulders were still slightly hunched, and her eyes were darting anxiously around the station. "Why does everyone know me? And why did he leave?"

It occurred to me that while Sesshoumaru's presence had made her nervous, his departure had upset her in a different way. Again I wondered. It seemed more and more likely that she was a reincarnation of the girl who had travelled with my brother in the Warring States Period. But reincarnations weren't supposed to remember anything, no matter how vaguely.

Kagome leaned toward her, ignoring the throngs of people that swarmed around where we stood on the platform. "I'm not sure myself what is going on, but I'll tell you what I can when we get to Inuyasha's apartment. As for Sesshoumaru leaving, well, he's just like that. He'll be back."

Rin only nodded mutely, looking quite miserable. Kagome stepped forward and took my arm. "Let's get out of here." She suggested.

When we were safe in my apartment, I called for takeout and collapsed on the floor. Looking hazily around, I noted that the living room was not nearly as spacious as it had seemed when I had bought the place. There were entirely too many people sleeping here. Kagome and I were in my room, and Miroku and Sango were in the other bedroom. Shippou and Kohaku had set up in the traditional guest room, which was more like an alcove off the main room.

But now Rin was here too. The guest room would take another futon, but I was not sure if she would be comfortable there with Shippou and Kohaku. To make things worse, my furniture had arrived yesterday, and the concierge had obligingly set it up for me while we were gone, crowding the room even more.

It had been a long time since I'd lived in cramped quarters with a group of people like this. It had been part of life in the old days, but there was no need to go on like that now. I looked at Shippou. "Weren't you going to buy one of these apartments? The one next door is open."

He took one look at my face and took the hint. "I'll see about it in the morning."

"Good." I sought out Kagome, and just caught her disappearing into the kitchen. I bounced to my feet and followed her. "Kagome."

"Yes?" She asked as she poured water into the electric kettle and opened a bag of tea, scooping out a spoonful. "What's the matter?"

"You told her that we were going to explain." I said in a lowered voice. "But we can't."

"That's true." She glanced toward the door. "Let's see if we can distract her until we have a chance to come up with a decent story."

Her phone beeped, and she handed the bag of tea to me and pulled it out of her pocket. A smiling little envelope danced on the outside screen. Frowning, she flipped it open and scowled at it. "Sesshoumaru says that he'll be here in the morning. He's sending Jaken here, for some reason."

"You mean he's just leaving us with her? But she doesn't even know us."

"That's why he's leaving her with us. He says she'll relax if he isn't around." She answered distractedly, looking over the message. Finally she shut her phone with a snap.

"But why Jaken? He'll lose it the moment he sees her!"

"Maybe he thinks she won't remember him." Kagome replied quietly, but she glanced warily out into the room, as if afraid Jaken was going to bounce through the door and make a scene. "He'll recognize her though. We'll have to try to keep him from acting too strangely about it."

"Good luck." I said without much hope. "What are we going to tell her now?"

"Let's start with who we are." She decided after considering it thoughtfully, taking several cups out and arranging them on a tray as she did so. "If she seems to want to know more about how we know her, I suppose we'll have to tell her the truth. It isn't as if we know that much ourselves."

We took the tray out into the living room. The guest room's sliding doors were open, making the room seem quite a bit bigger than it actually was. I saw that there was only one futon in there now, and Sango was putting two other futons out near the television.

"That way at least you can have some privacy." I caught her explanation to Rin as she sat down. "The boys can sleep out in the main room."

"Thank you." Rin said in a soft voice.

The food arrived, and we sat down to eat. Kagome asked Rin a few questions about herself. It seemed she was from one of those human families that just knew about demons, and she had grown up dealing with them. When her family died, she had found a job working for Toutousai. It had been fine until one of his more frightening customers had taken an interest in her. Toutousai had blown fire and chased him off for creating a disturbance, but then the demon just started sending his thugs to kidnap her.

"And now Toutousai just sent you off with us." Kagome said sympathetically. "How very like him. He's such a coward."

"But you know Toutousai?" Rin asked.

"Yes, I knew him a long time ago." Kagome answered cautiously, glancing at me. "I hadn't seen him in a very long time, though of course, he hasn't changed a bit. We didn't have much time to talk back at his place, and I suppose you'd really like to know who we all are."

"Yes."

Kagome took a deep breath and let it out. "I'm glad you know about demons at least. That should make this simpler, though not much."

She started with the easy part, introducing herself. But the rest required an explanation of the Jewel of the Four Souls, the business about the well, since that was how she had met the rest of us, and how Miroku, Sango, and Kohaku had come to this time. Then she briefly outlined my strange story.

"As for Sesshoumaru, the man that left us at the station, he's Inuyasha's older brother. But he's a full demon, like Shippou."

"But he's a lot more powerful than I am." Shippou contributed.

"Yes. Their father was one of the great demons. He's very powerful, and a bit strange sometimes. He doesn't say much, and it's usually hard to know what he's thinking-"

"I know him." Rin said suddenly. "I don't know how, and it frightened me at first. But now I realize, he certainly couldn't have been one of those sent to kidnap me, could he?"

"No." Kagome said firmly. "That's quite impossible. Sesshoumaru follows no orders but his own."

Hearing this, Rin relaxed. "I'm afraid I behaved a bit foolishly. Is that why he left?"

"It might be." Kagome said cautiously. "I think he didn't want to make things more difficult for you."

Rin nodded a bit glumly. "I thought so. You know me too, don't you?"

"It isn't that I know you, exactly, and Sesshoumaru doesn't either." Kagome paused, then jumped right in. "I think that you're a reincarnation, of a girl that used to travel with Sesshoumaru back in the Warring States Period." Rin's eyes widened, but she didn't say anything, so Kagome went on, "I never saw her myself more than a few times, and she was only about eight years old then, so I can't be sure. But you look a great deal like her, and from Sesshoumaru's reaction, I suspect that it what he thinks too."

"A reincarnation? Is that even possible?"

"It's very possible, even probable."

"Is it?" Rin sighed. "It seems so strange."

"I know it." Kagome paused before adding, "But you see, that little girl's name was also Rin. That was why it seemed that he knew your name. He wasn't saying your name, but the name of the girl that you looked like. I'm sure he didn't mean to alarm you."

"Of course not." Rin agreed. "Thank you for telling me that. That was what unsettled me most, that he knew my name."

Kagome smiled. "But what I don't understand is, if you are a reincarnation, how you remember Sesshoumaru. You see, I am a reincarnation myself, of the priestess who originally protected the sacred jewel. I found out that I was soon after I first met Inuyasha, and I knew a great deal about her. I even met her, many times. But I never remembered anything from her life. We were entirely different people."

Her words brought Kikyou's memory back to me. Since I had remembered everything, I had only thought of her as the spirit that had sent me back. But now I recalled the woman she had been before she died, and the cold, soulless doll she had been later. Kagome was right. Even before she had died, when she had been kind and good, Kikyou and Kagome had been entirely different people for all that they looked so much alike.

"You're probably a reincarnation." I said. "But the fact that you remember any part of your life opens up the possibility that there might be another explanation."

Rin merely nodded, and asked about Sesshoumaru again. We told her what we could, but of course what she really wanted to know was about the little girl who looked so much like her, and we knew so little about her. At length we divulged that Sesshoumaru was sending his servant here, and warned her that he was likely to make a scene. But she would be able to ask him about the other Rin, if she liked.

We sat around for a while, drinking tea and watching television. Around ten there was another knock on the door. We all looked at one another warily. With an air of resignation, Miroku got up to answer. Jaken barged through, his human disguise dissipating like a deflated balloon the moment he was through the door. Underneath it, he looked almost exactly the same as he had in the feudal area, right down to his clothes and the staff in his hand.

He was muttering furiously to himself. "I should be by Lord Sesshoumaru's side, not staying behind with some little girl. This Jaken a babysitter! This is just like the last time-" He broke off as his eyes fell on Rin where she sat at the table. He stepped back, once, twice, and astonishment pervaded his features. Then he fell over, his feet sticking straight up in the air. In a flash, he was on his feet again, his little beak mouth wide open and he started the shocked-dance I had earlier envisioned, crying out, "Rin! What sorcery is this?"

"Calm down." Miroku advised in his calm voice. "Screaming isn't going to make things any more clear."

Behaving as if a little troll had not just shoved his way past Miroku to make a ruckus in the middle of the room, Kagome turned to Rin. "You're our guest, so you can have the bath first. Do you want to go in now?" In a lower voice she added, "It will take him some time to calm down."

Rin paused, eyeing the small form of Jaken, which was still dancing around. The look in her eyes was disconcerted, as when she had first seen Sesshoumaru. Obviously she remembered Jaken as well.

"Yes." The girl decided, clearly overwhelmed by this last intrusion, and got up to follow Kagome down the hall.

"Shut-up, Jaken!" I snapped when he turned, still yelling, to watch Rin disappear down the hall. At the same time, Miroku just hit him with his staff. While the stars danced around his head, we sat back down. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Lord Sesshoumaru sent me." He snapped.

"I know that."

"Who is that girl, and why does she look so much like Rin?"

"We're not sure." Miroku answered. "She is Toutousai's assistant, but he asked her to take her with us because someone is after her. She has told us about her life in this time, and I am tempted to think it was the truth. We think she is a reincarnation, except that she remembers Sesshoumaru, and it would seem, you."

"Maybe you could tell us." Sango suggested, and we all looked at her in surprise. "You know much more about the original Rin than the rest of us, Jaken. Can you think of any explanation?"

"You want to know if I can think of any reason Rin's reincarnation would remember Lord Sesshoumaru?" He put both hands on his staff and bent his head, thinking. Finally he said, "There was that wish she made-"

We all sat there, breathless, until it became clear that he was not pausing for effect. "What wish?" I demanded impatiently.

He turned his head stubbornly. "Lord Sesshoumaru would not wish me to speak of it without his permission."

Miroku hit him with his staff again.

"Ow, ow!" Jaken started dancing again, his hands on his head. "Fine. I'll tell you." A change came over his silly face, and I realized that he was not really worried Sesshoumaru would be angry. He just did not want to talk about it. Very briefly, he said, "When Rin died, she wished that she would remember Lord Sesshoumaru forever."

It was obvious that there was much more to the story. "You're hiding something." I accused.

"I am not. The details aren't important." He replied quickly. "It's a very sad story. That girl should not hear it."

"Just tell us, Jaken. It might be important." His words had only increased my curiosity, so I raised one hand threateningly. "Try to get through it before she comes back."

He looked at me with the usual mixture of fear and condescension. "Very well. It started about ten years after we defeated Naruku. His death allowed Lord Sesshoumaru to return to his regular duties as Lord of the Western Lands, and he decided that it was time he took a wife. After a time, he selected Sazura Windmaster. She was from a venerable old house, had the right attributes, and was amendable. Too amenable, as he later discovered."

"Rin was still with you then?" Kagome inquired.

"Yes." Jaken said sadly. The little demon had always been completely hopeless at hiding his emotions. I expected him to start crying at any moment. "She was about your age, and she loved Lord Sesshoumaru very much." He frowned. "Actually, she looked exactly like that mysterious girl does now. Anyway, she knew how things had to be, and had accepted it."

"But Sazura said that he had scorned her." Kagome objected.

Jaken nodded, and did not bother to ask how we knew that. Sesshoumaru had probably told him Sazura was back and up to her tricks again. "For reasons known only to himself, Lord Sesshoumaru decided not to marry Sazura." He answered with diplomatic lip-service, but the look he cast in the direction Rin had disappeared was eloquent. "Sazura had seemed to be merely a well raised girl, demure and submissive, but she went absolutely ballistic. Her true nature came out, but no matter how much she raged against him, Lord Sesshoumaru would not be moved. Presently we left and returned to our own travels."

"For a time, all returned to the way it had been, and Rin was happy again. As he had often done in the past Lord Sesshoumaru left us one night, and she struck. Overcoming me with a spell, and slaughtering Ah-Un when he tried to interfere, she kidnapped Rin. I searched as best I could until my lord returned, and he located her quickly. But it was too late."

"Rin was dead?"

"Not yet." Jaken sounded sick. "We caught up to Sazura much faster than she expected, before she had time to complete her revenge. So when Lord Sesshoumaru came upon her, she attacked him savagely, trying to goad her into a fight. He realized immediately that she was trying to distract him, and sought Rin instead." He paused, and swallowed. "She had dropped Rin into the forest below, and had set a pack of wolves after her."

Kagome gasped, her hand to her mouth. "Wolves?"

"I don't know how she knew." Jaken said quietly. "Rin was killed, once, by wolves. It was right before she started travelling with us, and I think it may have been the first time that Lord Sesshoumaru ever used the Tenseiga. Somehow, Sazura knew about that, and knew that Rin was terrified of them. When we located her, the wolves had backed her up to the edge of a precipice. Just as Lord Sesshoumaru was about to dispatch the mangy beasts, Sazura's weapon came hurtling out of the forest right toward Rin."

Under the table, Kagome's hand sought mine, and squeezed it.

"Rin tried to dodge it, but slipped off the cliff and fell." Jaken's voice had become very quiet. "It was a very long way. Lord Sesshoumaru moved to catch her, but Sazura attacked him, throwing him up against the cliff side. He was not delayed very long, but it was long enough. He went after Rin instead of pursuing her murderer. Sazura would have never escaped that encounter alive if Lord Sesshoumaru had not chosen to go after Rin instead of killing her for her transgressions."

It was the sort of thing that Sazura would have done. She was a vindictive woman, and her mind was perfectly tuned to finding the best way to make others suffer. But even knowing her as I did, the story shocked me.

By this point, Jaken's tone had become emotionless and wooden. "We found her impaled on a dead sapling." He continued the horrible tale. "She was still alive. Before she died, she made her wish, that she would remember Lord Sesshoumaru always."

"But what about Tenseiga?" I blurted.

Jaken shook his head. "Lord Sesshoumaru tried. It didn't work. Perhaps there are limits on how many times Tenseiga can save a life, or maybe it was her fate to die in that way at that time. After Lord Sesshoumaru had accepted her fate, he took her to a temple. He told the stupid, terrified human priest to bury her, and he would protect his temple for all time. For some reason the idiot did not seem to wish the protection of Lord Sesshoumaru, but he complied. The temple is still there. Lord Sesshoumaru visits it once in a while." He shrugged. "Afterwards, we set out to find Sazura. You know the rest."

"And now we have her reincarnation." I said. "That wish might account for why she remembers him, I suppose."

"It would seem so." Kagome glanced around the room. "We're gathering again, aren't we?"

"Gathering?" Miroku inquired.

"Gathering." She confirmed. "Those of us who were present at the battle with Naraku are gathering together again. The only ones that are missing now are Kouga and his men, and Kikyou." In a quieter voice she added, "But I do not think that she will come again."

"The question is, for what end?" Miroku said quietly.

"Once again it falls to us to fight the ultimate evil." She answered. "We had better be ready."


End file.
